


The Secret Jedi Witch

by elenapadmeamidala



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2020-05-01 23:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19187491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenapadmeamidala/pseuds/elenapadmeamidala
Summary: Hermione is the daughter of two Jedi, who have taken refuge from the Great Jedi Purge on a primitive planet in the Unknown Regions. As Masters of the Force they discovered new ways to utilize the Force, but were not prepared that their children would be sucked into yet another conflict.





	1. Chapter 1

Heavy rain droplets were falling against the bay window looking out to the small garden with two oak trees and lush green grass. Although the young woman normally loved hearing this particular sound, minus heavy thunder, could not be calmed by it today as she was standing and contemplating in her room. This room had been her home on this planet. She wanted to memorize it as much as possible before she would give it up for some time or even forever. Her parents had worked very hard to live on a planet which would have been considered extremely primitive by the rest of the galaxy, but as it was far in the unknown regions her parents needn’t fear prosecution by the empire. In a relatively short time they had completed their medical studies and their approbation as dentists under their new aliases Kento and Mallie Granger, made a vast amount of money at the stock market to be able to provide their son Galen and newly born daughter an easier life.

They had been able to flee at the last minute into the unknown regions without preparation, from the Wookie homeworld Kashyyyk, where they had eventually found refuge during the Great Jedi Purge. Her mother had survived the vicious attack of Trandoshan slavers, heavily wounded, but her love for her family had given her strength to pull through. Her father had often teased her mother that her stubborn Mandalorian heritage probably was part of the reason she had survived.

Hermione fought back tears as she stood with the window to her back next to her bed with white linen and black floral pattern and light blue blanket and reread the article of the Daily Prophet of yet another murdered muggle family. Her parents had often spent hours in the evening in this room and told her and Galen countless stories of the Galaxy, of the Jedi Order and of Mandalore. To help their children integrate into this planet’s culture they had also researched epics, stories and fairy tales children usually grew up with. But Hermione also remembered how strict they had been in their own curriculum with their own children. It had not been enough to simply learn the curriculum in this country, but their parents had drilled them in different languages from this planet and the most frequent ones in the galaxy, science, history of the Republic, the Jedi Order, Mandalore and most important of all: The Force.

Hermione and her brother had both been taught from a young age to utilize the Force and to control their emotions. Five Meditations throughout the day had not been uncommon and she had secretly continued doing this in Hogwarts. The years before her brother had gone to Durmstrang had been the happiest they had in this house. Galen had been invited to Durmstrang and to Hogwarts but had decided on Durmstrang as he had argued that he needed to go his own way. In her fourth year, they had been able to train with each other secretly as he had been part of the Durmstrang delegation at the Triwizard Tournament, which had led to some confusion as it had been obvious to some that they knew each other well. Her gaze fell on the Muggle picture of the murdered family again and she took a calming breath and gathered the Force around her. Her family had already been through so much. Now it was her turn in protecting them.

Her brother was currently in America to train as an Auror, but he had decided to fight against Voldemort and its followers with the backing of another magical community. But as of now he had still not their backing as they refused to help those in danger from the Death Eaters. He had first wanted to initiate himself into Voldemort’s forces to fight from within, but after heated deliberation with his sister he had concurred that it may have worked if they believed him to be a pureblood, but just like his sister he was considered a “Moodblood”. So far nobody knew that they were related. She could therefore not obliviate him, but she would have to do it with her parents. She had contemplated to obliviate and sent them off-planet but had come up empty.

Her mother’s Mandalorian houses were enemies to each other and neither of them would grant her family sanctuary as she had been a bastard child. Her worth to any of the families was quite clear as they had given her to the Jedi Order although they had despised it at that time. There had never been a Mandalorian Jedi since Tarre Vizsla, thousands of years ago. Her mother's maternal family had been willing to instruct her mother, Galen and her separately in the fighting styles of Mandalore, during summer holidays, but never would have taken the risk at letting the Empire find out their relations to a Jedi.

Her grandmother’s house had been more forthcoming as they had lost one important member of the clan towards the end of the Clone Wars. A half-sister to her mother had been murdered by a Sith.  Hermione had even contemplated trying to contact the Chiss Ascendancy, as their territory was nearer to Earth then Mandalore, but she had nothing to bargain with them and they only knew about her father as he had accidentally come in contact with them. No. She had to hide them somewhere on Earth. The other human families with force-sensitive children, her father had rescued with the help of Senator Bail Organa, were already packing. This was her trial. She had to make sure that Harry would be able to defeat Lord Voldemort, but leaving her family behind without any memory about her or her brother was probably the hardest part and she hoped that she would catch her parents unguarded. They were war veterans and after all and would become extremely angry at her eliminating herself from their memory. Wiping one single escaped tear from her cheek and sniffing shortly she pulled the Force towards her once more for comfort and courage. 

“Hermione, tea is ready darling!” her mother called from the living room where they were watching some documentary about Australia.

“Coming, mum!” Hermione answered and was glad that the wavering was hardly noticeable in her voice.  It was time. She took one last glance and banished all her things in a small enchanted box, to make the room look like an unused guest room. Walking through her doorpost she almost dripped over their astromech R5, who had silently hovered behind the door. She had ordered him to rely on a recorded message to her brother if he would be able to.

“Keep them safe,” she whispered patting him as he responded with two short beeps.

Crookshanks would stay with her family and she had relayed the command already to the half-Kneazle cat, who complied, even though he didn’t want to. Silently she crept down the stairs, using the Force to shield her intention from her parents until she stood behind her unexpecting parents, who were happily chatting about the documentary and raised her wand with trembling hand. She had to do this right. If she did it wrong she could destroy their minds forever. She took another breath, centred herself and concentrated on the story she was planting in her parents’ heads and what she had to delete from their brains. Finally, she felt that she was able to do it and whispered with wavering voice and tears in her eyes:” Obliviate.” The wand lit up and Hermione could feel the magic of her spell doing what it was supposed to do. With the disappearing memories of her and her brother she also observed their disappearing in the family pictures.

One by one she could see her baby self in the high chair, disappear from the picture next to her mother, disappear from the pictures with her brother in various places: In Rome, in the garden, in oxford, at the Lake Garda, in their hidden Correllian freighter and many more. Having performed her heavy-duty she let the tears run down her cheeks as she stole out of her home taking it in one last time. The house, with the red bricks, the clean white windows and elaborate white door and their high hedges surrounding it. She took another deep breath and with her head looking down, her shoulders pulled up she walked determined towards her trial, which -unknown to her- would only be the beginning of a hard and dangerous life leading her away from her home planet in the Unknown Regions.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sitting cross legged in the far corner of Ronald’s attic room she was leafing through the books and sorted them on two enormous piles while the ginger boy, who was supposed to clean out his room was lying on his old bed. Her beloved fluffy ginger cat had to her dismay not headed her order through the Force and followed her to the Weasleys. It seemed that he was immune to her Force suggestions. He was purring contently as he was lying at her feet and clenched and unclenched his paws as contently.

“No, Ron. It’s no use he’s gone. I can feel it.” she answered him for probably the hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes.

 Ron tried to answer back, but hearing someone climbing up the stairs to his room he quickly jumped up while hastily calling:”I’m doing it, I’m doing it.”

Hermione sensing that it was their dark haired friend only smiled and greeted him while continuing her diligent sorting of books while she vaguely followed the discussion of her two friends.

 Technically she had already a complete library stashed in her bag, a wizarding tent which was bigger in the inside than on the outside, clothes for warm and cold periods, several blankets, pillows and camping beds, lanterns, canned and magically frozen food for at least a year, messed tins, a complete first aid kit consisting of both Muggle and Wizarding medicine, even several bacta plastas, several knives which could strategically be hidden under ones clothes, and many things more. But her most prized treasure was hidden in another part of her bag, which could only be opened and summoned by her: Her Mandalorian Armour, which she had forged with her cousin during her last awkward visit on Kalevala. She still believed that her red-headed aunt hated her for some reason or saw her mother and her family as a danger but her old grandmother, who had resumed the clan’s leadership after her daughter’s death, had insisted that no matter what, they were family and deserved to be treated as such. Her favourite cousin had helped her forge it. Furthermore, she had several blasters, ammunition, smoke bombs, grenades, two simple mandalorian armbraces and a repaired jetpack. But there was something else in her pocket. She had a small pouch which contained on the first sight only trash, but if one, familiar with those things looked closer they would see, that the different screws and pieces of medal and wires would one day serve a different purpose: Magnetic stabilizer rings, green energy modulation circuits, cycling field energizers, a power vortex ring, a power cell and several tubes. Those pieces had somehow come to her when she had repaired different droids or other mechanical devices.

“Even if the Killing Curse missed, Mad-Eye still fell about thousand feet” Hermione sighed while weighing _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_ in her hand.

“But he could have used a Shield Charm --“ Ron argued again, while Harry who had accepted the terrible truth already argued that Moody’s wand had been blasted out of his hand.

“Well, if you want him to be dead,” Ron grumpily punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape.

“Of course we don’t want him to be dead!” Hermione said, looking shocked. “But we’re being realistic!”  She could feel Harry’s revulsion and fought back tears in imagining that her parents could have suffered the same fate, hadn’t she wiped and changed their memories and identities. She had yet to get the confirmation by her astromech R5 that they had settled in Australia. She knew the house was already empty as R5 had sent her confirmation of that already. 

Harry and Ron’s description of what could have happened to Moody’s body became more detailed by the minute and she had to stop them.

“Don’t” Hermione screamed and burst into tears. She felt as if Australia was not protection enough for her parents, but had her mother’s family been more forthcoming she could have sent them there. It did not matter where they would have settled, they would never be welcome or at home anywhere. Not here on Earth, not in Mandalorian space and especially not in the empire. The Wookies had at least willingly tried to hide them on their Homeworld, but that was before she was born. What if the Death Eaters did find them?  But she could not tell them that. Moody just reminded her that there was the possibility that she would never see her parents or her brother ever again.

Ron managed to actually clean that revolting-looking handkerchief that he had used to clean out the oven earlier and she told them something about Moody, so shortly after Dumbledore and the two luckily bought it.

“That’s right” said Ron, nodding. “He’ll tell us to learn from what happened to him. And what I’ve learned is not to trust that cowardly little squit, Mundungus.”

Hermione gave a shaky laugh and leaned forward to pick up two more books, but unfortunately she dropped “The Monster Book of Monsters” on Ron’s foot which started snapping at his ankles until Harry managed to subdue it again.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!” Hermione cried apologetically .

“What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked limping back to his bed.

“Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we are looking for the Horcruxes.”

“Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.”

“Ha ha” said Hermione looking down at _Spellman’s Syllabary_. “I wonder… will we need to translate runes? It’s possible… It think we’d better take it, to be safe.” She additionally decided to take _Howarts, A History_ although she had memorized it years ago.

Harry, like Hermione and Ron had predicted, started his speech about how they had decided to come with him after Dumbledore’s funeral and that he would feel better if they stayed behind.  Rolling his eyes he said to Hermione:”Here it goes.”

“Listen!” Harry started again but was harshly interrupted by Hermione. “No, Harry you listen. We’re coming with you. Whether you like it or not. That was decided month ago- years really.”

“But are you sure you’ve thought this through?” Harry asked persistently.

“Shut up” Ron advised him.

“Let’s see,” Hermione said, slamming _Travels with Trolls_ onto the discarded pile with a rather fierce look. “I’ve started packing right after Dumbledore’s funeral, so we’re ready to leave at a moment’s notice, which for your information has included some difficult magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-Eye’s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right under Mrs. Weasley’s nose and raiding Madam Promfrey’s stock of medical supplies. I also had to spend quite a lot of money on food supplies, meds and potions and other stuff. I’ve also modified my parent’s memories so that they’re convinced they’re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins and that their life’s ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to migrate to Australia? I had to prepare everything for them beforehand, to get them approved. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me-- or you, because unfortunately I’ve told them quite a bit about you. My brother unfortunately, doesn’t want to go to Australia or to get his memories wiped. I also had to make sure that everyone associated with the name Granger disappears of any records. So many of my neighbours spontaneously decided to move too. My parents’ Dojo, which they started building shortly after we moved into our new home, officially changed ownership to throw any Death Eaters off their trail. Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lift the enchantment. If I don’t -- well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendel and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got two children.”

Ron got back up from the bed when he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears again and put his arm around her once more and frowned at Harry.

“I -- Hermione, I’m sorry. I didn’t.  Wait two children?” Harry asked surprised and Hermione nodded as more tears were gathering in her eyes.

“Yes, Galen. He is my elder brother. You know him actually from fourth year. He went to Durmstrang, but I can’t tell you where he is now. It’s the only way to keep him safe.”

Harry nodded in understanding. “Now, it makes sense why you two were so comfortable around each other.”

Ron asked curiously:”Why have you never told us before that you had a brother? I mean we’re your best friends?”

“It’s complicated, Ron. He thought it would be better if nobody knew that we had siblings. He got an invitation letter for Hogwarts and Durmstrang, but he decided on Durmstrang because it was an all boys school and he assumed that I would go to Hogwarts and we could share what we have learned. Not every school has the same focus of magic.”

“So you know about Durmstrang’s curriculum?” Harry asked. “You actually have an elder brother, who  helped you all those years?”

She shook her head. “Not really. He let me figure out most of the magical stuff on my own, but I’ve read all his books and notes on things that we would never have found in the Hogwarts library. Not even in the forbidden section.”

“You scare me, Hermione.” Ron dramatically mocked her.

Hermione smiled weakly, while finally wiping her tears away.

“So, Harry.” she changed back to the previous the subject: ”You didn’t realize that Ron and I know perfectly well what might happen if we come with you. Well, we do. You can’t do this on your own. We are stronger as a team. “

Her comlink on her belt started to beep indicating that someone was trying to contact her. It could not be someone from the rebellion as she had informed Fulcrum of the current situation and what she had done. They knew that the planet was temporarily a no-go area and in case they needed Jedi, they would had to contact her parents directly under their new identities. So the contact was either her elder brother or someone from Mandalore.  

“Ron, show Harry what you’ve done.” she ordered him as the beeping did not stop. This had to be someone from Mandalore. They had no patience at all. Her brother usually let it beep twice before stopping.

“Nah, he’s just eaten.” said Ron.  But after some urging from Hermione they finally left the room and she could faintly hear the ghoul moan. She clipped the comlink of her belt and answered by clicking it.

 “Su cuy'gar.” (=Hallo?). The voice on the other end of the com clearly belonged to her harsh aunt.  “Ibic Bo-Katan. Why can’t I reach your parents?”

“Ba'slan shev'la.” (=Strategic disappearance) Hermione answered but did not elaborate further.

“What?! Explain!” Her aunt ordered.

“The situation we have warned you about. It’s happening now. We are under siege from Voldemort. So, Galen and I decided to wipe their memories about us and send them to another continent under different identities to stay safe. They know that they are Jedi who need to hide. Some of the force sensitive families are with them others are on a third continent with Galen.”

 “Di'kut! (=fool, idiot) This was not your decision to make!” came the harsh answer and Hermione wished that her cousin were at the other side of the comm. At least he would understand. “They would have chosen to fight! It’s in their nature to protect family. You can’t take their identities!”

“Elek (=Yes), it was my decision, ba'vodu (=aunt). They have endured enough loss, heartbreak, war and other horrors and this time I’m the one fight on the forefront of this war and would have been put in unnecessary danger. Fulcrum should have told you by now that the planet is off limits to anyone. Even  aliit (=family, clan, tribe). It’s too dangerous.”

“Then why did you not send them to Kalevala? That would have kept them safer than staying on that primitive rock?” her aunt asked.

“You think I didn’t think about that? I did, but you have made it clear that you did not want us there. Sporadically for little training visits sure, but letting us stay permanently with our clan. No way. Especially when you constantly remind buir dalyc (=mother), that she is just some bastard child, which should not even be there. And you never get tired telling us that as Force wielders we are a danger to the clan. So in order to keep the clan and my parents safe this was the best option.”  Hermione ranted furiously while explaining her decision. Why was her aunt comming her now?  She usually never commed them. It was usually only Korkie or her fierce grandmother.

“Why are you coming us anyway?” she wanted to know.

“We have some very persistent visitors from another aliit.(=clan)” her aunt answered annoyed. “Thanks to a problem your parents created during the clone wars with the help of Satine.” Hermione’s curiosity was raised. Her parents had done many things which would not have been approved by the Jedi Order, but this was the first time that she heard it in relation with her murdered aunt.

“You have my attention.” she answered. “What clan and what problem?”  Harry and Ron were entering the room again and she put her index finger in front of her lips to indicate them to be silent.

“My aunt” she whispered to the confused boys who sat down on Ron’s bed.

“ Aliit Marek, from Keldabe. Apparently they found out about a marriage licence between Mallie and Kento, issued by Duchess Satine herself. Now they want to check his DNA and see if the Kento Marek mentioned is the same, they ‘lost’ to the Jedi Order.”

“Haar'chak (=Damn it!)” Hermione cursed rubbing her front with her hand, trying to find a way to stall them. Her clan desperately needed more allies, but she had sent her parents already away and would not be able to reach them again without jeopardizing their security and render everything she had done up to this point useless. She had not known that there was an official Mandalorian marriage licence of her parents union or that her father was a Mandalorian too. He had never cared to find out about his origins. That could complicate things. Especially if clan Saxon got a hold of it.

“If it is DNA, you need I will try to convince Galen to come to Kalevala and provide his DNA and explain the delicate situation. He shares the Y-chromosome with Buir jagyc (=father) ” Hermione suggested.

“What language is that?” Ron carefully whispered to Harry who shrugged his shoulders. He had heard her speak it once before in 4th grade, but never that fluently and sometimes some words when she cursed. At least it sounded like curses.

“Send me his frequency and I will do it myself” Bo-Katan ordered her obviously not trusting her and Hermione rolled her eyes while searching for her brother’s new frequency and transmitting it to her. The hidden transmitter station in the cellar of her house was obviously still fully operational otherwise her aunt would not have been able to reach her.

“Jate” (=Thank you)  she said apparently receiving the frequency: ”Teach Voldemort this: “Ke nu'jurkadir sha Mando'ade!” (=Don't mess with Mandalorians!) And for manda’s sake don’t prove yourself to be an embarrassment to our clan or I’ll hunt you down myself. K'oyacyi! (=Stay alive!”  Hermione rolled her eyes again. Her time with death watch had clearly formed her aunt. Not exactly for the better, but she was a damn good fighter. That was at least one thing Hermione admired about her.

“Vor Entye (=Thank you)” Hermione answered and disconnected the comm.

“Sorry. Family Problems. My aunt’s not happy about the situation”

“She sounded angry.” Harry remarked and Hermione mumbled:”Ha. When is she not angry.”

“Ok. But what language is that?” Ron asked again and Hermione shortly played with the thought about telling her friends the entire truth. They deserved the truth, but on the other hand she had already told them too much. They knew that her parents were in Australia. What if they were captured? Would they be able to prevent anyone finding out about them. Harry was incapable of occlumency and would Ron be able to resist under torture. She hoped, but she could not risk it telling them everything.  She would risk the exposure of the “alien” community, consisting of Force sensitive families and her parents. Not all families were human, but thanks to Galen’s magic they could wear something (like a necklace, braces, etcc…), which changed their appearance to human ones as long as they wore it. No. She would not put them in danger.

“It’s my clan’s language.” Hermione answered. 

“But you are not Scottish.”Harry remarked to Hermione’s annoyance. Yes, he was a sharp one.

“I’m not, but I won’t divulge more information about my family at the moment.” she answered with a pointed look, which told the boys to stop prying and proceeded to throw books onto one pile or the other.

Silent, which was interrupted by the muffled sounds of Mrs. Weasley shouting from four floors below, stretched out until Ron complained again about the early arrival of the Delacours and was promptly lectured by Hermione about the reason about their early arrival.

“What we really need to decide is where we’re going after we leave here.” she knew Harry wanted to go there, not only because his parent’s graves where located there, but also because he had survived the killing curse there. She had thought about the possibility of a horcrux hidden there, but it would have been a bit too obvious for her liking and it was a perfect location to ambush them there as Voldemort might expect Harry to go there.

When Hermione suggested the possibility that Voldemort could have the place watched she felt his surprise. It seemed that he had not thought about this and he struggled with coming up with an argument.

Ron stirred the discussion in another direction. They had no idea who R.A.B. was or if the person had been able to destroy the Horcrux. Hermione had the feeling that she had already seen these initials somewhere but she could not remember where. 

“And once we get hold of it, how do you destroy a Horcrux?” asked Ron.

“Well,” said Hermione, bitting her lower lip. “I’ve been researching that”

“How?” asked Harry. “I didn’t think there were any books on Horcruxes in the library?”

“They weren’t” answered Hermione turning pink. “Dumbledore removed them all, but fortunately he didn’t destroy them.”

Ron sat up straight, wide-eyed. “How in the name of Merlin’s pants have you managed to get your hands on those Horcrux books?”

“I wasn’t stealing!” Hermione defended herself. “Technically, they’re still library books, even if Dumbledore had taken them off the shelves. Anyway, if he really didn’t want anyone to get at them, I’m sure he would have made it much harder to get them.”

Sensing Ron’s impatience she elaborated. “I summoned them with a simple ‘Accio’ and they came zooming from his study into the dormitory.” Sensing that Harry was about to ask she elaborated further. “I did it right after Dumbledore’s funeral after we had decided that we’d leave school, and after I’d raided Madam Pomfrey’s and Snape’s supplies.  And I don’t think that Dumbledore would be angry as we are only going to use them to destroy Horcruxes.”

“I’m not complaining.” Ron told her. “Where are they anyway?”

Hermione rummaged for a moment and extracted a large volume, bound in faded black leather from a pile. Reading that book had unfortunately triggered several horrible Force visions of some unfamiliar individuals, but she was sure that one of those people performing the terrible deeds had been a Sith Lord. She only hoped that this particular Lord had been defeated and would not resurface again. It was bad enough that they had Voldemort to deal with. An immortal Sith Lord would prove even more devastating. She felt nauseated at the remembrance. Even worse. She had not been able to consult with her parents or they would have noticed that something was up. And she did not want to burden her elder brother or give him any idea, what they were dealing with as he could run into death eaters in the States. Even though the chances were slim, but not impossible. It was a relatively small planet after all.

“This is the one that gives explicit instructions on how to make a Horcrux. Secrets of the Darkest Art. It’s a horrible book, really awful, full of evil magic, reeking of the dark side. I wonder when Dumbledore removed it from the library. If he didn’t do it until he was headmaster, I bet Voldemort got all the instruction he needed from here.”

“But then why did he ask Slughorn how to make a Horcrux then, if he’d already read that?” asked Ron.

“No,” Harry answered. “He only approached Slughorn to find out what would happen if you split the soul into seven. He most likely knew already how to make one.” The dark haired boy agreed with Hermione that this book could easily have been the book Voldemort got his information from.

“And I’ve read about them,” said Hermione. “The more horrible they seem, the less I can believe that he actually created six of them. The book warns how unstable you make your soul by ripping it apart. And that’s just by making one Horcrux!”

“Isn’t there any way of putting yourself back together?” Ron asked.

“Yes, of course there is, but I can’t see Voldemort attempting it as it would be extremely painful. He would need to feel real remorse for the terrible deeds he has commited and it could destroy him. And he is too immersed in the dark side.” Hermione explained.

“Does it say how to destroy Horcruxes in that book?” Harry asked eagerly.

 “Yes, Hermione answered, now carefully turning the fragile pages as if examining rotting entrails, “because it warns dark wizards how strong they have to make the enchantments on them. What Riddle did to that book, which I assume was his first Horcrux , was one of the few really foolproof ways of destroying a Horcrux. You stabbed it with a basilisk fang and it’s venom was so destructive that it destroyed the container of the piece of his soul.”

“Too bad we do not have a basilisk fang and where do we get basilisk venom or something similar?” Ron asked.

“That’s a problem we need to solve. There are very few substances as destructive as basilisk venom and those that exist are too dangerous for us to carry with us. And we need to not only destroy the Horcrux, but also its container beyond any repair.” Hermione went on but was interrupted again.

“Even if we wreck the thing it lives in,” said Ron, “why can’t the bit of soul in it just go and live in something else?”

“That’s a good question, Ron” Hermione acknowledged. “The Horcrux is the complete opposite of a human being. It’s just a fragment of the soul and cannot survive without it’s container because it can’t exist without it.”

As the boys looked confused it at her she elaborated. “If I ran you through with the Sword of Gryffindor, your body would die, but your soul would stay intact.”

“Which would be a real comfort to me, I’m sure” Ron stated drily, while Harry laughed.

“So when I stabbed the diary, it died and because of this the soul trapped in it could no longer exist.” Hermione nodded, but was interrupted by Ron again.

“Hang on,” said Ron, frowning. “Ginny was possessed by that piece of soul? How was that possible?”

“While the container is still intact the fragment of the soul can flit in and out temporarily if someone gets emotionally to close to the object and Ginny poured her heart out into that diary and opened herself up to the attacker.”

“I wonder how Dumbledore destroyed the ring?” Harry lamented. “Why didn’t I ask him? I never really…?” he trailed away.

Hermione’s sense of acute danger prickled and she shut the book closed with a thud and vanished it in her bag lying under Ron’s bed, followed by the pile of books which she would take with them.  Harry and Ron looked at her confuse and suddenly the silence was shattered as the bedroom door flew open with a wall-shaking crash. Hermione shrieked and dropped Crookshanks who hissed indignantly and who streaked under the bed. Ron jumped off the bed, skidded on a discarded Chocolate Frog wrapper, and smacked his head on the opposite wall and Harry instinctively dived for his wand before realizing that he was looking up at Mrs. Weasley, whose hair was dishevelled and whose face was contorted with rage.

“I’m sorry to break up this cozy gathering,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m sure you all need your rest… but there are wedding presents stacked in my room that need sorting out and I was under the impression that you had agreed to help.”

“Oh yes,” Hermione answered, feeling terrified as she could feel Mrs. Weasley’s rage nearly explode. She lept to her feet, sending the pile with the discarded books in every direction and was followed by a grumpily complaining Ron and Harry.

_Forget an angry Bo-Katan. Mrs. Weasley is more terrifying than anything I have ever seen._ Hermione thought.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

They were all laughing so much that none of them noticed the latecomer, a dark-haired young man with a large, curved nose and thick black eyebrows, until he held out his invitation to Ron and said, with his eyes on Hermione, “You look vunderful.”

“Viktor!” she shrieked, and dropped her small beaded bag, which made a loud thump quite disproportionate to its size. As she scrambled, blushing, to pick it up, she said, “I didn’t know you were —goodness — it’s lovely to see — how you are?” In Durmstrang he had always been her brother’s fiercest competitor and Galen had not trusted him at all. Well, he had not trusted anyone, but his family. But in fourth year his distrust was because he had believed that Viktor was using Hermione to get to him. Hermione on the other hand had been absolutely happy that the goblet of fire hadn’t spat out her brother’s name.

“Fine. Thank you. “he answered greeting her by kissing her knuckles. “I have brought someone with me.” He stepped aside and Hermione shrieked again seeing her dark haired brother’s cheeky grin. He looked paler than usual and had cut his hair shorter.

“Su cuy'gar  (=Hallo) ner vod (=my sister)” He said engulfing her in a bone crushing hug.

“Su cuy'gar  (=Hallo) ori’vod (=big Brother)” she answered relishing the embrace. She missed their parents and her big brother’s hug had always comforted her as a young child. He hugged similarly like their father. This could potentially be the last time that she would ever hug him. She hoped not, but the future was not certain. _Uncertain, the future is_ her parents had always quoted their Grandmaster and this phrase somehow stuck within her memory. She would need to talk to him further about their aunt’s com call two days ago and how they would proceed further. Well, she would go with Harry and Ron to hunt Horcruxes, but maybe she could convince him to stay with their clan. They needed allies and he could function as a link between the two clans. And it would keep him out of harm’s way. At least out of Voldemort’s harms way. Mandalorian and imperial dangers were still looming out there for him.

She vaguely felt Ron’s anger and distrust towards Krum and her brother spike while Harry felt no ill will towards the professional quidditch player and offered to show him to his seat which Krum accepted following him into the tent.

“Did  ba'vodu (=aunt) Bo-Katan reach you?” Hermione asked him biting her lower lip with slight trepidation ignoring the now almost fuming Ron.

“Yeah. She did. “he chuckled. “A little warning would have been appreciated sis.” he answered brushing his hand over his head in the same mannerism like their father. It must have caught him off guard and Hermione grinned back hoping to hear more.  

“She is beyond furious but we should probably talk later or your friend is going to explode.” Galen remarked nodding towards Ron who for some reason was gaping like a fish and Hermione sensed that he was struggling to say something to her elder brother who was about to pass him.  But he stopped next to him and asked Hermione in Mando’a fixing Ron with a dangerous glare, who gulped and took one step back. “He is not your boyfriend, is he?”

Surprised Hermione’s mouth fell open: “No, he is not. He is just a good burc'ya (=friend).”  And to her surprise she felt his …  relief? Why was he relieved about that?

Then he joked. “And I was so looking forward to give him a ’Keldabe Kiss’ to greet him properly”.  

Hermione’s eyes widened and shook her head in aspiration and pointed towards the tent. “The wedding takes place in there. You better go to find your place before you get any ideas.” She only hoped that he sat far away from the twins or there could be an unholy alliance of pranksters at the end of the evening.

He just grinned again and bowed before going to find his seat.

“Your brother is scary Hermione.” Ron complained but Hermione only shook her shoulders and followed them into the tent.

 

* * *

 

Hours later Galen finally saved her from Ron’s dancing or rather what he called dancing. It seemed more like “Step- on- Hermione’s feet- as often-as-you-can”. Viktor had, to his dismay only been able to snatch one dance and she had told him how grateful she was for bringing her brother with him. Following Galen to a vacant table in the far back of the tent, she set down. With a swish of her wand she carefully performed a silencing spell to prevent being overheard.

“So you being here probably means that MACUSA will not help us against Voldemort.” Hermione stated the obvious and Galen nodded sadly.

“I’m not exactly a skilled political negotiator as our aunt was and contrary to their Muggle counterparts they refrain from helping any other magical community on foreign soil.” Galen explained, “but I’ve been able to gather individuals who want to help without being directly involved with the order.”

“Individuals like Victor?” Hermione nodded towards the Quidditch champion arguing with the Loovegoods and her brother mentally confirmed this. 

“I can’t tell you what we will do to help as much as you can’t tell me what you are set out to do. Although I really want to, little Ner’vod. (=sister)”

“kar'tayli (=I know)”

“Do you have everything prepared?” her brother asked her and she nodded and petted her small bag lovingly. 

“Don’t worry. I have. But we need to talk about what Bo-Katan.” Hermione insisted. Her brother being reluctant to talk about it groaned which incited a cheeky smile from her.

“She has caught me off guard. I answered the commlink believing it was you and out shot her voice. Coming out of the refresher I slipped on the floor, hit my head on the tiled floor and cursed and she heard everything. Her verbal lashing about what we did to mum and dad was terrifying.” he shuddered.  Hermione knowing her aunts temper all too well petted his hand knowingly. Although their mother had tried to keep curses or swear words away from them they had picked up quite a vocabulary from their aunt and her night owls. “She even argued that our parents are well trained Jedi and the organization we are fighting can barely be a threat to them. I tried to explain it, but it did not really work. Maybe she’ll understand talking face to face.”

“Anyway she then shortly informed me of the situation on Kalevala and ordered me to come immediately. No, actually she commanded me to come. Apparently aliit (=clan) Marek has no patience and is very unhappy that we are not allowed to stay with our aliit and they want to confirm if their son named ‘Kento’ is the same they have lost to the Jedi Order. I mean what are the odds? It’s too much of a coincidence. They have to be Dad’s clan.”

Hermione leaned back in thought crossing her arms and nodded again.  “Either that or they are trying to establish a trace using aliit (=clan) Marek as bait.”

“Could be, but I think Bo-Katan would have sniffed out ill contempt against us.” Galen answered. Nobody could lie to their aunt. She somehow had developed a sixth sense against it. Or was it a gift?

“If it is true then I still can’t believe that both our parents are Mandalorians.” Hermione responded. “As far as we know the last Mandalorian introducted into the Order was Pre Viszla. And then all of a sudden two Mandalorian aliits (=clans) are giving one child each to the order. An order,  which they have despised and seen as their enemy for centuries. I mean, even bastards are normally raised within the clan because no matter what, they are family. What was different with our parents? Do we know why aliit Marek ‘lost’ father to the Order?”

Galen sighed. “Bo-Katan has not been very forthcoming with further information. Not sure she knows about it either. Maybe, because they had the Force?” Galen suggested but Hermione was not so sure.

“No, it has to be more than that. The Midi-chlorean count is not tested among Mandalorians. There could be several hidden Force sensitives among the clans and they wouldn’t even be aware of it.”

“What is even more surprising is that our parents fell in love without knowing that they are both Mandalorian.” Galen stated. “It must have been the will of the Force. Hermione rolled her eyes to that. She knew the Force was real, but somehow she could not believe in predestination through the mystical energy.

“Buir dalyc (=mother) knew about her heritage” Hermione corrected him and he nodded. “But according to her only because she checked her records after the incident...”

“ ‘lek (=yeah), I remember.” Hermione murmured wringing her hands. “So when are you going to Kalevala?” she asked her brother.

“Tomorrow. I’ll take the _Pegasus_ and make for Kalevala, but I don’t know how long I will be gone and I have a feeling that I should be here instead of being there. What if they want to see buir jagyc (=father) personally. We can’t tell them the location of the planet, just yet. We don’t know which side they chose after Maul took over or if they are being allied with aliit (=clan) Saxon and pretty everyone is these days.”

“Don’t focus on the negative ori’vod (=big brother). Korkie will be there to help you and he is politically more gifted than we are.” Hermione tried to reassure him.  

“ Ah, yes. Your favourite Cousin.” Galen sneered.  “Probably. But, you are right I’m focusing too much on the negative. But I can’t help it” Galen concurred while Hermione spotted Harry sitting with Ron’s aunt Muriel and Elphias Dodge and felt his shocked stupor at whatever they were discussing. Ron was unsuccessfully trying to get the bartenders attention and she could spot Victor now arguing angrily with the Lovegoods for some reason. Victor’s anger felt explosive and even her brother could feel it as she felt him prepare himself to step in if necessary.

Hermione felt a sudden cold shift in the Force which indicated that something terrible had happened and locked eyes with her brother, who had apparently felt the same and jumped up from his seat mimicking his sister, startling Remus sitting at the neighbouring table.

K'oyacyi! (=Come back safely.) He ordered, hugged her and placed a brotherly kiss on her front. She wanted to hug him and reassure him, but there was no time. She had to get Harry and Ron.

At that moment, something large and silver came falling through the canopy over the dance floor. Graceful and gleaming, the lynx landed lightly in the middle of the astonished dancers. Heads turned, as those nearest it froze absurdly in mid-dance. Then the Patronus’s mouth opened wide and it spoke in the loud, deep, slow voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”

 

Every seemed fuzzy and slow and Hermione having the advantage of the Force steered through the still shocked crowd towards Harry when the guests came out off their stupor and started to sprint in all directions in panic. Some were screaming, others were hectically apparating. Hermione had to raise a mental wall to block out all their panic, terror and fear and other emotions which were directly streaming towards her through the Force. But she also had to find Ron and blocking the others also made it more difficult to locate him. A sudden drop around them could be felt and she knew that the protective enchantments had just been broken from outside forces.

"Ron!" she screamed dragging Harry behind her holding his hand. As they pushed themselves through the crowd she saw cloaked and masked figures approach in the crowd. They felt cold, foul and reeked of the dark side. She could hear Lupin and Tonks shouting protective spells in unison.

"Ron. Ron." She shouted again dragging Harry towards the last known location she had last seen their missing friend, but she and Harry soon realized that they were buffeted by terrified guests. She had to get Harry away from here. If she was unable to find Ron soon then they would have to leave him behind. It could not be helped. Harry was, as sad as it was for her, the priority. He was, who Voldemort wanted. She suddenly ducked and pulled Harry down with her as a streak of light sped over their heads, which had felt like a danger to every fibre of her body.

Then, to her immense relief, Ron was suddenly there and Hermione just grabbed his hand with her free one, straightened and tried to concentrate but her mind was still with her family. She felt the familiar tug around her navel and the swirling darkness as they were pressed through a much to narrow space. When her feet came to stand on solid ground again she opened her eyes and almost shrieked. They were on Tottenham Court Road. Too familiar ground. As expected Harry and Ron were berating themselves for not having packed anything but were impressed again when she told them that she had all their things. Technically not only their things, but knowing their sizes she had also stacked up on other more functional clothes before coming to the Burrow. She led them down a side street, then into the shelter of a shadowy alleyway and let them change into new clothes and slip under the invisibility cloak.

"You're amazing, you are," said Ron, handing her his bundled up robes.

"Thank you," said Hermione, managing a small smile as she pushed the robes into the bag.

"The others — everyone at the wedding —"Harry stuttered and she could feel his fear for them. Ron's even more. She even felt her friend's urge to go back, but she would not let him.

"We can't worry about that now," whispered Hermione. "It's you they're after, Harry, and we'll just put everyone in even more danger by going back." _It's my duty to keep you both alive._

"She's right," said Ron, who seemed to know that Harry was about to argue, even if she could not see his face.

"Most of the Order was there, they'll look after everyone." But Hermione could feel that he sounded braver than he felt as he too wanted to dash back to his family. She knew that their brave dark haired friend thought mostly about Ginny.

"We have to get moving." Hermione caught herself and took the lead. The longer they stayed in one place the easier they would be caught. Ron pestered her about the location and she shortly explained it to him and evaded drunken patrons coming out of a pub.

They needed to find a place to stay and mentally went through possible locations as some houses were still in the Granger's name. She knew she had forgotten something and this was it. She should have bought a safe house.

She steered them in a shabby looking café which would certainly never pass a health inspection, but they had no choice and to her dismay her two friends sat in a way that forced her to sit with her back to the door. She glanced over her shoulder so frequently she probably appeared to have a twitch. The Force was practically screaming that something was wrong and her neck hair was standing straight. Having her back to the door gave her a tactical disadvantage and she carefully fingered the handle of her wand hidden in her sleeve.

To her dismay Ron was feeling uncomfortable in Muggle world and pressed her towards going to Wizarding world's locations, but she would not have it. Waiting for two ordered cappuccinos, some burley workman entered the café and squeezed into the next booth. She just wanted to tell the boys what they would do next when she realized that those men were no Muggles at all. They felt rotten to the core and the Force felt repulsed at the dark side.

"Wands ready." she whispered slowly pulling her wand. Should she kill them? But it was not the Jedi way.

The two workmen made identical movements, and Harry mirrored them without conscious thought: All three of them drew their wands. Ron, a few seconds late in realizing what was going on, lunged across the table, pushing Hermione sideways onto her bench. The force of the Death Eaters' spells shattered the tiled wall where Ron's head had just been, as Harry, still invisible, yelled, " _Stupefy_!"

The big blond Death Eater was hit in the face by a jet of red light, slumped sideways, unconscious. His companion, unable to see who had cast the spell, fired another at Ron: Shining black ropes flew from his wand-tip and bound Ron head to foot. The dark haired waitress screamed and ran for the door, but did not make it. Harry sent another Stunning Spell at the Death Eater with the twisted face who had tied up Ron, but unfortunately the spell missed, rebounded on the window, and hit the waitress, who collapsed in front of the door.

" _Expulso_!" bellowed the Death Eater, and the table behind which Harry was standing blew up: The force of the explosion slammed him into the wall and he felt his wand leave his hand as the Cloak slipped off him.

" _Petrificus Totalus_!" screamed Hermione from out of sight, and the Death Eater fell forward like a statue to land with a crunching thud on the mess of broken china, table, and coffee. Hermione crawled out from underneath the bench, shaking bits of glass ashtray out of her hair and trembling all over.

" _D-diffindo,_ " she said, pointing her wand at Ron, who roared in pain as she slashed open the knee of his jeans, leaving a deep cut.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Ron, my hand's shaking! _Diffindo_!" The severed ropes fell away. Ron got to his feet, shaking his arms to regain feeling in them. Harry picked up his wand and climbed over all the debris to where the large blond Death Eater was sprawled across the bench.

This had been her first of many battles to come and if she continued this way she would shame her clan. She needed to be better than this or they would not survive their ordeal for long. She ordered the boys to deluminate and close the café and after they had identified them she obliviated them, like she had her parents. Only with these Deatheaters she did not only take their last memory of them fighting them, but also those from the last month. Although she wanted to wipe their mind entirely to make them suffer for what they had done so far, she knew that that would lead her closer to the dark side.

Ron became confused, when Harry ordered Ron to clear up the place, but Hermione explained it in simple terms. They cleaned up the café and heaved the Deatheaters in their booth and Hermione woke up the imensely confused waitress and pulled the Force towards her and suggested to go home, lock her house and forget everything she has seen. She had never tried this before, but to her relief the waitress dully repeated everything and ambled out of the café.

They wondered how the Deatheaters could possibly have found them and discussed where they should hide out. Harry feeling responsible again suggested splitting up, but Hermione argued strongly against it.

But his next suggestion was even worse: Grimmauld Place. Snape most likely had already divulged the information about their former safe house and she was pretty sure that the other side would watch it intently. On the other side. Harry was no the owner and she could cast protective spells. But it was still risky. She did not like it.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione was entering their tent again after completing her morning katas to relieve her of her frustration.  Ron’s brooding mood was getting worse each day and she knew that the Horcrux which they had stolen during their adventurous heist in the ministry had something to do with it. She felt guilty for losing her wits when Yaxley had not let go of her, but she had spotted Kreacher’s outline at the window and was sure that he would keep out of sight when the ministry would search their former hideout. Ron had paid the price for her loss of focus and needed to recover which meant that she kept him on a specific diet to get his strength up. He hated not being able to eat what he wanted and she used a mix of muggle and wizarding medicine to heal him and also to boost the boys and her health with specific nutritional capsules from off-world as they were unable to get enough fruits. Harry didn’t complain, but Ron seemed to wallow in his misery and complained every second. As the days became shorter she also forced them to take Vitamin D12 capsules and had them sit outside for at least half an hour to prevent Vitamin D deficiency. She medicated Ron additionally with iron tablets and orange juice in the morning to get his iron count up again. He was very difficult as he could not understand why he had to wait for fifteen minutes after taking the iron tablet before he could eat breakfast and she had long given up explaining it to him. But then he had phases when he was really sweet towards her again.  Ron was resting in his cot at the moment and she berated herself again for splintering him and had the urge to pet him to calm him. He was scared for his family and for his father. The exploding dark statue in the ministry had also shocked him and apparently some others. But she had felt good blowing it up and her little reprogrammed seeker droid had shown his worth and her harsh lessons with her aunt seemed to have been useful.  Especially, as she had ordered him to bring the statue down without too many, casualties. After all she didn’t want any collateral damage. But the smoke grenades would have made it look much worse than it actually was. She had certainly blocked a lot of death eaters reaching them and she had reached out with the force if any but had only felt the distinctive dark coldness on the people’s arms closest to it.

They would be able to cover more ground with Ron unharmed.  She couldn’t help herself.  She found herself moving to slow as they could not use any other transport. Both of her friends had been surprised when they had found out that she had not really unpacked much at Grimmauld place. Even the rations had been kept in her bag for all eventualities. She hadn’t liked the idea of hiding there in the first place. Even if Harry would be able to return in the future he would find that he would have to repair most of the house.

Harry, who was on today’s kitchen duty, had assembled a delicious Irish stew, which made her stomach growl in hunger. She had bought the meat in one of the towns with her prepaid credit card and would make sure that Ron would eat it with a small sip of orange juice to make sure that his body would absorb the iron better. She heard rustling and felt Ron finally emerged from his cot as Harry handed them a bowl of hot soup as they gathered around the table.

“So what’s next?” Ron asked curiously but Hermione knew that their conversations had become very repetitive as Harry and Hermione spent fruitless hours trying to decide where they might find the other Horcruxes, and how to destroy the one they had already got. Hermione had resulted in meditating to let the Force guide her, but the Force was brooding and difficult to read at the current moment.  She vaguely followed her friends discussion and although she strongly believed that Dumbledore would have found a hidden Horcrux in Hogwarts, Harry insisted that the old headmaster had told him, that even he had not known all of the school’s secrets. She even doubted that one was hidden in Albania. Although, if one was in Albania she might use her connection to Victor as she knew that one of his friends came from there.

“Come on. This You-know- who, we’re talking about.” Ron argued with Harry. “Why would Hogwarts be important to him? It’s a bloody school.”

“Yeah, his school! It was his first real home, the place that meant he was special; it meant everything to him, and even after he left —” Harry explained himself slowly getting riled up by his friend.

“This is You-Know-Who we’re talking about, right? Not you?” inquired Ron. He was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck and Hermione could sense that Harry was visited by a desire to seize it and throttle him.

“You told us that You-Know-Who asked Dumbledore to give him a job after he left,” Hermione cut in before the situation would get out of hand.

“That’s right,” said Harry. “And Dumbledore thought he only wanted to come back to try and find something, probably another founder’s object, to make into another Horcrux?”

“Yeah,” said Harry.

“But he didn’t get the job, did he?” Ron cut in. “So he never got the chance to find a founder’s object there and hide it in the school!”

“Or…” Hermione mused. “He created a Horcrux while he was still at Hogwarts and wanted to retrieve it.”

“He met with Dumbledore to get this post. He could have had enough time to retrieve anything then.” Ron answered.

“Mh. Not necessarily. He could have hidden it at a place in Hogwarts where it would have been difficult to retrieve would have needed more time and I doubt that Dumbledore let him into his school without him being watched.”

“By whom?”  Ron huffed. “Filch?” He laughed humourlessly. The horcrux was affecting him again and it seemed that he had the weakest mind of them. Or not necessarily the weakest mind, but the most to lose in this quest. This was why it was affecting him that much. He needed to take it off soon.

Suddenly Ron shrieked as something small and black sailed out of Hermione’s bag, while casually moving  it’s tentacle like limbs which mostly ended and hovered towards the table letting out several sounds which Hermione could understand but she could feel Ron’s terror as it reminded him of a flying spider. Even Harry was twitching nervously in his seat. It had been one of the first droids which she had repaired and memory wiped. But she had also exchanged the antenna, so that no matter what it would never remember that it originally had served the empire and although she had not wanted to use it during her time with her friends she had not been able to resist using it in the ministry. His colour had served well as camouflage in the dark hallways of the ministry and the dark statue. And although she had not wanted to leave it turned on after their mission in the ministry it had proven useful keeping order in her bag and it reminded her of the more advanced world that would be out there for her again after all this was over. It gave her incentive even though they were currently running in circles to find the next horcrux.

“Hermione. What in Merlin’s name is that thing?” Ron whispered in hushed voice never leaving her hovering droid out of sight.

“Ron, don’t worry. That’s ID-9 or Ida as I call it. It’s quite a useful droid and it helps me to keep my bag in order. There is simply too much stuff in there and I’m good at spells, but not as good as your mother is in keeping order.”

Ron hesitantly smiled at that, but she suspected that Harry was close to figuring out that this was a droid which was too advanced and it displayed slightly strange behaviour. But this was due to his data wipe, reprogramming and possibly closeness to magic. It prodded her playfully and swirled around her beeping cheerfully. But this particular droid could prove useful as a weapon too.

“Did you take that with you into the ministry?” Harry asked carefully and Hermione nodded grinning conspiratorially.

 “Did that thing blow up the statue?” he asked more directly and Hermione shook her head.

“No, technically Ida only planted the explosives strategically. I blew it up remotely.” she stated and Ron’s eyes widened in understanding.

“You could have killed innocent people!” he hissed clearly thinking about his father, brother or the Cattermoles.

“Yes, there was certainly some danger, but Ida placed the explosives strategically that the blasts would turn inwards to the structure and effectively crumbling it. People standing next to it would only get in contact with the dust and with the smoke of the added smoke grenades.” she defended herself. 

“Are you sure about that?” Harry enquired processing everything.

“Yes, think about it this way, Harry. You probably know how it looks when old building complexes are strategically rigged to be destroyed. How does it look? You see the explosions from the bottom going up. Then the structure crumbles downwards and when it reaches the bottom the dust bursts low on the ground. So that means, that there was maximal damage to the structure, but minimal to any bystanders. But the Deatheaters could not see in all that dust.”  she explained. “Without that distraction we would probably not have made it out at all.”

“Blimey, Hermione. You can be scary.” Ron exclaimed shaking his head.

“Anything else you are going to blow up?” Harry queried throwing her bag a wary look. He clearly had made the connection that there were probably more explosives somewhere in her bag and she was sure that he would handle it more carefully the next time.

Ida chimed happily towards Harry, but he luckily could not understand droid. Hermione pointed at it drily commenting:”You just earned yourself another paint job for that language.” The hovering droid pointed two of his pincers protectively towards her while chiming another set of sounds.

“Is that thing talking?” Ron asked and Hermione nodded.

“You know, Harry funny that you should ask, Really.” she turned the conversation back to her dark haired friend, wringing her hands and both her friends were suddenly listening intently.

“Hermione? What did you do?” he enquired with slightly growling voice.

She felt like she wanted to squirm, but she took a stabling breath and straightened determined:

“I booby trapped Grimmauld place. Kreacher knows where the traps are so he is safe.”

“What the… You did what?!” Harry bellowed angrily and Ron’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy?! When did you do that? We could have set it off while still being inside.”

“No, Harry I’m not crazy and you could not have accidently set it off. I knew that there was a possibility that the Deatheaters might find a way inside the house or that we would not be able to return there. So I prepped the house. In case of a possible failure of the ministry’s mission Kreacher was ordered to inform the Weasleys and in extension the order, that the house was off limits due to a “mortal” curse, cast by me.”

“So that’s why you ordered my to command him to go and serve the Weasley’s until we would return in case we didn’t come back from the ministry?” Harry asked and Hermione nodded again.

“Yes, and the possibility of order members being part of the ministry’s or Deatheater’s search team was therefore rather slim and the traps are wired in a way that will inflict maximum damage to the Deatheaters and minimum damage to the houses structure. Might be messy to clean the house, though.” she explained.

“That’s crazy.” Harry murmured staring shocked at her. “You are killing people.”

“I don’t want to kill people, Harry, but please think what they are doing to the muggle-borns, half-bloods or even muggles. Do you think that they will simply round them up without torturing them? No. Deatheaters thrive on power, violence and all kinds of torture: Physical and mental and sometimes even both. Unfortunately the types of torture are usually the same when oppressive rigid regimes take over. My pacifistic aunt Satine, may she rest in peace, might say that countering violence with violence is the wrong way and I would really like to agree with her, but knowing what Deatheaters are capable of I can’t ignore it and have to respond with this kind of violence. And negotiating is only possible if both parties see each other as equals. We are their enemies and they would not hesitate to deliver us to Vol-“

“Don’t say his name!” Ron yelled angrily balling his fists, pearls of cold sweat glistening on his face. 

 “Oh grow some balls, Ron.“ she huffed sending him an annoyed glare, while he turned into an angry shade of red. This was getting ridiculous and it seemed that the horcrux was now affecting her too.

“You-know-who and they would do- Merlin knows what- to us and he would kill Harry and everything we sacrificed so far would be in vain. Each Deatheater I take out with this trap is one less to do harm to us or anyone else in the future. _Force, I really don’t sound like a Jedi._ she mentally berated herself _.  Ok. Maybe rather like a darker Jedi_.

“Any questions?” she asked breathing heavily, but apparently she had rendered her two companions speechless as they only shook their heads as Ida was swirling around them.

“Ok. My turn.” she said strictly pointing at locket.

* * *

 

In a dark and handsome manor surrounded by huge hedges Draco Malfoy had just been summoned into the parlour. He spot his father pale and unshaven in a dark corner gripping his hand around another glass of wine, his mother next to him and his crazy aunt crackling near the large fireplace. Yaxley and some Deatheaters with more or less familiar faces were standing in the room and turned towards him as he hesitantly entered.

“You went to Hogwarts with the Mudblood Granger?” Yaxley enquired angrily and Draco nodded hesitantly.

“Yes, we were in the same year, she was a Gryffindor but I’ve overheard her telling someone that the sorting hat strongly considered putting her in Ravenclaw. Why do you ask?”

“The Mudblood is responsible for the death of fifteen of our men and insuring six more. Four of them are likely to join our death count. Potter hasn’t the gut to kill and the Weasel isn’t intelligent enough to have come up with such an elaborate trap we tapped into in Grimauld place.” Yaxley scoffed. “That only leaves the Mudblood.”

The younger Malfoy could not believe it. He knew Granger was fierce, but was she actually able to kill? He had been with the Deatheaters squad which had visited her family’s house, but it had been completely empty. Curiously the entire village had been. How had she managed to get the entire village away? She was brilliant, he had to give her that and he had secretly been glad that she had had the foresight to let her family disappear but letting an entire village disappear without a trace was something else entirely. Although the house had not looked like he had imagined it. It had been small in comparison to his home, but it had looked clean and not dirty at all.

But her stunt at the ministry had stunned him, but on the other hand they were Gryffindors. So why had they been in the ministry, and how had she destroyed the statue without anyone noticing. He still had the daily prophet of that day with the statue bursting. It was sheer luck that nobody had died in that explosion, but he suspected that she had counted on that, because it had confused many wizards. Maybe the former Black household had been an accident? On the other hand if she was willing to kill then he was probably quite high on her list, which was not good at all. He knew quite an arsenal of dark spells, but an angry Granger, who was willing to kill, would be extremely dangerous and most likely not end well for him. She had a mean hook. He knew that much from third year where she had actually broken his nose and given him a nasty concussion which had forced him to visit the hospital wing where Madam Pomfrey had healed his nose and kept him under observation for the day as he had had trouble walking straight and suffered from a nasty headache. Blaise had finally confirmed his suspicion last year returning from the Slug club. He had not known what dentists are, but even wizards knew what Dojos were and her parents had founded one. Which had suggested that she knew how to fight. 

“Weren’t you on watch duty for Grimmauld place?” Yaxley’s eyes narrowed and Draco slammed his mental defences closed and was glad that he had been tutored by his aunt to this. Yes, he had seen some movement in the window, but nothing had indicated that the house was actually inhabited and he didn’t know if the hideous house elf still existed. And he had also not wanted to find anything there. So he had naturally not looked very carefully. His aunt was still going on that the house should be in their possession again after the “blood traitor’s” demise.

“Yes, but it appeared abandoned.” he defended himself but Yaxley shook his head clearly not believing him.

“Well, it obviously wasn’t.” Yaxley bellowed causing the young blonde to wince. “Because of your incompetence our people have been murdered by this stupid Mudblood!”

“Then tear her home apart and find her relatives. Let’s see how she is when she sees her parents in our hands!” Bellatrix  crackled eagerly. She was obviously out for blood again. Draco shuddered.

“You don’t think we already did that?!” Yaxley turned angrily towards the dark haired witch. “There is no trace of them anywhere. Not even the Mudbloods in the Muggle Police Force, who we keep under the Imperius can find them. “

“You are working with the Muggle scum!” Bellatrix hissed angrily. “Why not just kill them?”

“They are a necessary evil. They won’t live for long. We will kill them slowly once they served their purpose, but as of now they are only chance to find the Mudblood in the Muggle world.” he answered her darkly.   “But as I said. The Grangers just vanished without a trace. They muds told us that this should not be possible without today’s data trace. And that’s not even the most curious part of the whole story.” he huffed with blazing eyes and clearly pausing for effect.

“What now. The Mudblood can’t surprise me anymore.” Bellatrix huffed annoyed.

 “Well, until seventeen years ago the Grangers did not exist!” he fumes stomping his right foot. “Neither in our world, nor in the primitive Muggle world. And all dataflow, whatever that is, stopped this summer, where they disappeared again without a trace. ”

“What do you mean they did not exist?” Narcissa frowned.

“It means that the Grangers have false identities. They created them about seventeen or eighteen years ago and we do not know who they really are or who that Mudblood really is.” he explained. “Our imperiused sources think that they are probably in some sort of witness protection program. Good thing that such a thing does not exist in our world.”

Draco could not believe his ears. Who was the girl, he knew as Hermione Granger that had been able to get under his skin during their years at school? She had proven him wrong about everything he had been taught about Muggleborns and had bested him in every subject, except flying.

“Then how do you know that she is a Mudblood then?” he enquired. Maybe she wasn’t. It wasn’t changing much, but still.

“Her parents’ professions.  According to that Mudworm we have in their law enforcement they acquired their licences legally after creating their identities and unfortunately for us they have acquired quite a lot of money over the years, which the dirty Muds can’t trace either.”

“Which brings me to you. I want you to tell us everything you know about her. Every little detail might help. Umbridge told us that you two were fierce competitors or should I say enemies at Hogwarts and as you’re a Slytherin, I believe that you have gathered much information about her.”

Draco gulped. He certainly had had an obsession with his enemy as she had been so infuriating, but would it actually help to bring her down. Did he want her to bring her down? His family had lost favour with the dark lord, since his father had lost in the ministry’s skirmish and he hated being so helpless while being surrounded by that many blood hungry death eaters.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione was standing tensely in defensive position between her two best friends who were hurling insults at each other, while the blasted horcrux, was crackling happily. Well, she was the only one who could hear its venomous pull to the dark side, slowly corrupting her friend. Taking turns had apparently not helped in corrupting him. She could feel his blazing rage mixed with sheer bottomless fear about his family. Their short sense of accomplishment and excitement she had felt earlier when they had found out that the sword of Gryffindor could destroy Horcruxes had not lasted long, as she had focused on the task at hand and not at keeping the Horcruxes influence away from their weakest link.

"Yeah, and we're about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them — nowhere effing near, in other words!" Ron shouted angrily balling his hand into fists ready to strike.

"Please take it off. You wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't been wearing it all day."Hermione tried to reason with her ginger friend.

"Yeah, of course he would," said Harry, who clearly had enough of making excuses for their friend. "D'you think I haven't noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D'you think I didn't guess you were thinking this stuff?"

"Harry, we weren't —" Hermione tried to defend herself

Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair and turned to Hermione.

"Don't lie!" Ron hurled at her. "You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you'd thought he had a bit more to go on than —"

"I didn't say it like that — Harry, I didn't!" she cried almost losing control of her feelings.

She could not loose control. Someone needed to stay sane. She had only talked with Ron about how she was disappointed in Dumbledore, that he had not better prepared Harry. He could have tutored him not only on Voldemort's past, but also in combat and defence against the dark arts and she had tried to reassure him that they were making progress as she had sensed his patience slipping. It seemed that he had not properly listened to their conversation.

She didn't blame Harry, but mentally cursed the now dead headmaster. Harry should have been tutored properly the minute he had stepped on Hogwarts soil. But no, Dumbledore had pretty much skipped to do that. It was a dangerous oversight that could tip the war for the worse. She was not ready to give up. Her family depended on her, the families with force sensitive children depended on her parents and her clan would need her. At least Korkie had repeatedly told her that. She didn't want to stay stranded on this planet, where everything was stifling. She wasn't ready to let yet another war be won by the dark side. She needed at least one victory for the light side. Hermione clinched her hand. She would not break into tears. No matter how much she wanted to.

The sword of Gryffindor was hidden they knew not where, and they were only three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.

"So why are you still here?" Harry asked Ron aggressively

"Search me," said Ron shrugging his shoulders.

"Go home then," Harry snapped while Hermione concentrated on her breathing to get her feelings under control.

"Yeah, maybe I will!" shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward Harry, who did not back away.

"Didn't you hear what they said about my sister? But you don't give a rat's fart, do you, it's only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I've-Faced-Worse Potter doesn't care what happens to her in here — well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff —"

"I was only saying — she was with the others, they were with Hagrid —" Harry defended himself against his best friends verbal onslaught.

"Yeah, I get it, you don't care! And what about the rest of my family, 'the Weasleys don't need another kid injured,' did you hear that?" Ron fumed.

"Yeah, I —" Harry started, but was interrupted.

"Not bothered what it meant, though?" Ron baited him again and Hermione could sense that they both were quite close at snapping.

"Will you two knock it off!" Hermione, said with rough voice forcing her way between them.

"We understand that you are worried about your family. We all are. But now is not the time to lose ourselves in worry. I don't think it means anything new has happened, anything we don't know about; think, Ron, Bill's already scarred, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you're supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I'm sure that's all he meant —"

"Oh, you're sure, are you? Right then, well, I won't bother myself about them. It's all right for you two, isn't it, with your parents safely out of the way —" Ron insisted and was clearly not interested in logic at the moment and in his fear he didn't really care how hurtful his words were to his other two friends. Hermione breathed hard, but in now mentally analysing her friend she knew that she had successfully switched to a more objective level. She just needed to stay there. Her sense prickled.

"My parents are dead!" Harry bellowed falling in Ron's trap. "Harry no!" Hermione ground out.

"And mine could be going the same way!" yelled Ron.

"Then GO!" roared Harry. "Go back to them, pretend you've got over your spattergroit and Mummy'll be able to feed you up and —"

Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner's pocket, Hermione had raised her own.

"Protego!" she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time.

Ron stood up again and expectantly turned towards Hermione, but she did not react to go after him.

"What are you doing?" he asked frowning at her.

"What do you mean?" she asked still reeling from the corrosive hatred between her two best friends.

"Are you staying, or what?" Ron asked accusingly, and she felt anguish remembering the tender feelings that had slowly developed over the weeks and that Ron now was hell bent on leaving them. She would not be able to protect him when he left them, and she had to make sure that Harry succeeded with his mission. Here with her she could protect them both, but not separated, when the entire enemy force was looking for them. Their ruse using the ghoul was now led bare and in case of capture they might be tempted to lay a trap for Harry. He might be furious at Ron now, but in case of capture of Ron, he would most likely rush to his aide. She shook herself. She would need to wipe his mind otherwise he might compromise their mission. Voldemort could not find out what they were after.

Her eyes roamed the shadows and she saw Ida floating a metre above Ron. It's pincers ready as it had detected Ron as the potential threat.

She took a deep breath: "No, Ron. We have to stay on mission. I promised Harry on my honour that I would help him with it and I will not break my promise."

"So, your bloody honour is more important to you than what we could have." Ron angrily pleaded with shaking voice.

"Without my honour I might as well be dead." Hermione cited and mentally shook herself. It seemed that Bo-Katan's influence on her was bigger than she had anticipated.

"And I'm asking you not to go because you know as well as I do that I can't let you leave us without taking precaution." She told him mentally begging him not to go.

"What do you mean?" he asked dumbfolded taking a step back from her.

"You have two options right now." She told him. "Stay with us and continue working on our mission or leave. In that case I have to wipe your memory. The information of what we are doing can't reach our enemy."

"You're mental, you are!" Ron shouted at her. "I get it. You chose him and I'm the third wheel." He shouted. "I'm going, and you won't be able to stop me!" With that he whirled around and …

"Stun!" Hermione ordered Ida using basic, who extended one of her pincers and shot an energy pulse towards Ron's head, who shrieked and groaned as he collapsed.

"What are you doing!" Harry exclaimed surprised as he hadn't seen the black hovering droid. She could sense that he was still angry at Ron, but a tiny bit scared of her.

Hermione removed her shield charm and kneeled next to the ginger.

"He wants to leave alright, but not knowing about the Horcruxes." She explained again summoning the Force to extract his memory. With her wand she spoke the incantation and as she bridged their minds she extracted every single memory of the term Horcrux ever spoken. She only left him with parts of the last memory so that he could remember that they had fought and that he wanted to return to his family.

She stepped back after she was done and had to keep herself from tearing up. It shouldn't have been this way. Maybe she should just addle his brain and manipulate him to stay with them. But decided against them. As much as she wanted to protect him and keep him with them. Harry and she would remember the venomous fight from minutes earlier and therefore treat him differently. Maybe it was for the better. No. Ron had to stay with them, but she could not force him. He had wanted to go. Forcing him to stay by manipulating his memory would eventually lead her to the dark side. But it would be safer for him as it seemed that he had forgotten that his family was under observation. He could not return to them.

She pointed the wand towards his face again and murmured. "Enervate." Ron jerked in a up from the ground into a sitting position, having the last fight in the forefront of his mind and Hermione implored.

"Ron, please stay." But he just angrily stood up, glowered at her and stormed out of the tent. A heartbeat later she could hear him disappapparate.

Harry came out of his stupor, while Hermione fought hard to keep her tears at bay.

"He's really gone." He murmured rubbing the nape of his back with his hand and brought Hermione back to the present. She took a deep breath, centred herself, nodded and said gravely. "It was his choice."

…

Hermione cleared her throat.

"We need to move." She commented emotionlessly getting the control over her feelings again. "Our campsite might be compromised now."

 

* * *

 

The next few days were passing in relatively silence and Hermione often changed the campsite. She had caught herself to be dawdling several times and it seemed that Ron's absence was affecting Harry just as much as her. She had made another list of possible hidden places of further horcruxes. In the case of Gryffindor's missing sword, she had decided that it would probably not be anywhere near Hogwarts or Hogsmeade, but what if Dumbledore had hidden it in Godric's Hollow? She had considered that it was maybe a tad be too obvious, but on the other hand nobody of the enemy's force knew that it was missing.

The other place she considered visiting was Sirius cave, he had inhabited during their fourth year and that she knew to be the entrance to something else. But Sirius had not been aware of it. He had only been stunned, when one of the stone walls in the caves had reacted to her for a moment and almost appeared transparent. Even Harry and Ron had not been able to understand it, but it had explained why she had sometimes heard singing in Hogwarts that nobody else was able to hear. Did Dumbledore know that the cave had been more than it seemed? She doubted it but would not put it past him. So far only she and Galen knew what it was as he had heard the singing as well.

As she was now the one deciding on the campsites, she never told Harry exactly where they were as he was unable to close his connection with Voldemort and didn't want to risk possible exposure and she hoped that Voldemort would not be able to get into her friend's head or wiping Ron's memory about the horcruxes had been in vain. On the one hand she felt bad that he replayed their quarrel with Ron over and over again in his head, but on the other hand as long as it stayed in the forefront of his mind, he would not accidentally reveal their search for horcruxes as she doubted that Voldemort would view Harry's memory for so long, when all it seemed like squabbling teenagers.

Harry had mentioned once that Ron had been right that they had no means of destroying it, but she had said, that they should focus on finding them. Once they had found them all, they would find a way to destroy them. She had even contemplated if a lightsabre would be able to destroy them, if she was so lucky and miraculously find a kybercrystal.

Phineas Nigellus now frequently popped up in his painting and even accepted Hermione's blindfold and was providing them with information. It seemed that Ginny, Neville and Luna had reformed Dumbledore's army and gave the new headmaster such a tough time, that he had even reinstated one of Umbridge's degrees that forbid gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies and that Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. This information had surprised Hermione as she had believed that those Hogsmeade weekends would surely have been stopped by the new administration.

"Hold on." She interrupted the painting. "The Hogsmeade weekends are still taking place?"

"Yes, of course they do." Phineas answered haughtily. "Why shouldn't they?"

"The students are they accompanied by teachers or other people or are there specific requirements for the students?" she enquired, and she could see that Harry perked up and the wheels in her mind were working overtime.

"Well, yes of course there are. Going to Hogsmeade is a privilege and Snape is enforcing this rigorously." He answered.

"Yes, I understood that, but what are those stipulations? Who is allowed to go, are there places in the village that students are forbidden to frequent or is there a specific time in between students can visit Hogsmeade. Are there enough protective measures for the students when returning to Hogwarts? I mean how is security organized." she enquired with accelerating heartbeat.

"Everyone, except those which have gained detention, are allowed to go in between 11am until 7pm. As far as I've heard students of Hogwarts are only allowed to stay in the centre of the village and must not venture further out and the wards of Hogwarts should be more than sufficient and as far as I know there is no other additional security measure than before, but I must say that the silence in here is really refreshing. You can't get a minute of silence in Hogwarts." He pointed out, but Hermione knew that he was fishing for information about their whereabouts and she doubted that the security was as lax as years before.

"If you are starting to ask about our whereabouts again, then I will put you back in the bag" she threatened darkly, and the painted wizard's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"In that case, I will take my leave as you two have no sense of proper decorum at all." He scorned as Hermione put the black cloth over the picture again and murmured a mufflato spell over it, that she could not be overheard talking with Harry and stuffed it back in her bag.

"Why were you enquiring about the Hogsmeade weekends?" Harry queried.

"Three guesses, Harry." She answered but was disappointed as it seemed that Harry was too sleep deprived to think properly and he just shook his head.

"You want to see if we could check Hogsmeade for the Sword of Gryffindor?" he tried, but Hermione shook her head.

"No, I think we've pretty much established that it is very unlikely to be there. But the Hogsmeade weekends may be an opportunity for us to sneak into Hogwarts undetected."

"What for? So, you do think that he has hidden one there?" Harry asked omitting Voldemort's name as they both had no need to say his name as they immediately knew who they were talking about and Hermione wiggled her head.

"It is likely, but I thought that perhaps we would try to find the remaining horcruxes before we attempt to sneak in. We may not have the Sword of Gryffindor, but surely there are still Basilisk fangs in the Chamber of secrets, and I think we should search the Room of Requirements diligently. We know that he found the Chamber. Who's to say that he didn't know about the Room of Requirements too and you told us that you hid Snape's school book in a Room clustered with forgotten and stored things. Wouldn't that be the perfect hiding place?"

Harry nodded and for the first time in weeks it seemed that some fight was coming back to him. "You're brilliant, Hermione." He claimed.

"Wait, we have polyjuice potion, don't we?" he asked remembering their conversation back at the Weasley's and Hermione nodded happily as her friend seemed to deduce her plan. He was sharper than their ginger friend.

"So, to sneak in we would have to wait for one of the Hogsmeade weekends, catch at least two students and make our way into Hogwarts and out within an hour?" he calculated but Hermione shook her head.

"No, not just any students. We need Slytherins. They have a higher percentage of Death Eater parents and most likely have more privileges at Hogwarts. So, while students of other houses are probably under high scrutiny, Slytherins might be able to move more freely through the village and the castle and we would have to take some small bottles of potion with us into the castle in order to be able to stay in our stolen forms for longer than an hour."

"Sounds like a plan to me, but we are not getting closer to finding any of the horcruxes." He lamented.

"Well, I've given it a bit of thought." Hermione agrees. "Maybe we are looking at it the wrong way." Harry looked at her with uncertainty and crossed his arms.

"I mean, we know that all his horcruxes have a connection to one of the founders. The ring of Slytherin was in Gaunt's possession before it was turned into one. We have the locket, which was in Regulus Blacks possession, because he figured out his plan and tried to correct it. We know that the cup was in Hepzibah Smith's possession and we do not know what has happened to it after her death."

Hermione listed them counting them on her fingers and Harry shook his shoulders. "And how exactly are we looking at it the wrong way?" he asked still with his arms crossed. "I mean, there are lots of dead ends."

"Exactly, we are currently looking at a lot of dead ends. 'Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results when, in fact, the results never change, is one definition of insanity.'" Hermione cited. "We need to take a different approach."

"So, what do we do?" Harry nodded in understanding.

"Well, think about who smuggled Riddle's diary into Ginny's cauldron in second year?" Hermione coaxed, and Harry's eyes lit up.

"Lucius Malfoy!" he exclaimed.

"Who just happened to be a loyal follower of him and as he appeared in the graveyard of Little Hangleton he most likely was a member of his most trusted inner circle, which is why Riddle entrusted him his diary and the elder Malfoy used it without knowing what it actually was." She prodded.

"You think that Malfoy has the cup." Harry asked clearly doubting her, but Hermione shook her head again, taking a deep breath. Patience was not one of her virtues.

"No, not Malfoy. But maybe someone else in his inner circle." She suggested. "Look Harry, we only need to find out who it could be."

 


	6. Chapter 6

Hermione felt on edge. Every fibre in her body told her to go into the room, grab Harry and get him out of there. Something was off. Very off. They shouldn’t have come here, but after Harry had not let go of the idea that something could be in Godric’s hollow she had unfortunately relented. Although she had a very bad feeling about this. She wasn’t quite sure, but why was Harry so trusting. She hadn’t understood the old woman’s whispering, but Harry had? The entire house looked as dirty as if a Hutt had resided in it. Thick grey and muddy dust crunched beneath her feet Hermione fought to categorize the stench: dank and mildewed smell mixed with something that smelt sweetly foul as if meat had gone bad. Hermione tried to block out that stench and she almost expected maggots and other insects to appear somewhere, but it was winter, so the chances of that were lower. Her gaze was drawn to a thick volume lying on a wooden stool. It seemed oddly out of place as it was the only thing, that didn’t look as if it would fall apart any second. _The life and lies of Albus Dumbledore_ by Rita Skeeta. Hermione wanted to squash that piece of junk away, but her feeling told her to keep it. Especially, when her gaze fell on the note written by the stupid bugging journalist she detested so much. It suggested that the very woman in the next room had helped Skeeta. She quickly pocketed inside her bag before anyone could stop her.

 She heard Harry help Mrs. Bagshot rummage around in the next room until he detected a photo of a familiar face and she could feel his shock and frustration at the unresponsiveness of the old lady. With the Force she concentrated and examined the old Lady which had felt off the minute she had realized that they were being watched. The Force forcibly bounced back from the old Lady and she immediately knew what emitted the foul stench. Her heart jumped, and she quickly dashed into the next room and violently pulled Harry back behind her while she rose her wand. Harry protested, but she had none of it.

“Harry, this isn’t Bathilda Bagshot.” She whispered never leaving the creature out of her eyes. She wasn’t an inferi, as Hermione could detect a sharpness of mind of the other creature but what was she? She looked like the old woman. So, was she possessed?  At closer inspection the old body was showing signs of decay so was that a Zombie? She certainly walked like one, but Zombies didn’t have a sharp mind.  But Harry clearly didn’t believe her.

“Hermione, I appreciate your being cautious, but this isn’t necessary.” Harry claimed from behind her.

“I decide if caution is necessary.” Hermione answered back bluntly, never leaving the walking corps out of her eyes.” She grabbed Harry’s cold hand, which he took surprised. Any second know she would apparate them out of here, but Harry had to be prepared or he could decide to pull back and she would splinter him too and that was something she could not afford.

Bathilda now shuffled a few steps closer to them and one step back when Hermione pointed her wand threateningly towards head. With a little jerk of her head she looked back into the hall.

“You want us to leave?” Harry asked, slightly dejected.

She repeated the gesture, this time pointing firstly at him, then at herself, then at the ceiling.

“Oh, right . . . Hermione, I think she wants me to go upstairs with her.” Harry told her and gasped when she gripped his hand tighter.

“Harry, this isn’t Bathilda Bagshot, I can sense it” Hermione told her friend again more urgently this time. “This smells like a trap” She could sense that the creature could understand every word spoken but seemed unable to speak. But why. Harry ignored her again.

“Hermione, she might know something that could help us with our quest.” Harry murmured back. In the last view weeks Hermione had codified their search for horcruxes as an extra precaution.  Harry had not understood why, but Hermione had felt it necessary for some reason. “We could go upstairs together.” Harry suggested but Bathilda shook her head with surprising vigor, once more pointing first at Harry, then to herself.

“Ok. Seems that she wants me to go with her, alone.” Harry commented trying to sidestep her from behind.

“Not a chance.” Hermione shot back pulling him right back to where he had stood. “Right now, we outnumber her, but if she takes you upstairs alone then she has the tactical advantage to attack you. So, no, Harry you are not going anywhere alone with her.” Hermione answered him.

 Harry snorted: “Attack me, Hermione. Look at her. She is in no condition to harm me.”

Now it was Hermione to become frustrated with her all too trusting friend.

“For Merlin’s sake, Harry!” she ground out. “Harry, look closely at her body. Really look. Not at what you expect to see, but what you really see.” She hoped that he caught on, but apparently, he was too caught up in the moment and they had already lingered to long in this dwelling. Her neck hair straightened, so she could feel that this trap seemed to be closing in as the creature was becoming inpatient.

“I don’t see anything.” He whispered back also impatiently.

“Look closely.” She urged him.” Her skin is deathly pale, greyish, even. Her eyes are milky. Too milky for anyone alive. You can see parts of post-mortem lividity on her neck and throat and the reason why she walks and moves as stiff as that, might be due to rigor mortis. Harry, as I said earlier, this isn’t Bathilda Bagshot, but something or someone is using her body.”

Harry stiffened behind her and she could feel that he did look more closely, but it seemed that her eyes where sharper than his. Especially in this dim light. He hesitated.

“The smell comes from her.” Hermione whispered taking a step back, shoving Harry backwards.

She could feel Harry’s hesitation as he desperately hoped that the old woman had something from Dumbledore from him, but he seemed to believe her.

“You know Mrs. Bagshot. I think we are have already intruded on your hospitality for too long.” He started taking a step backwards. “It’s probably best if we took our leave.” They should just apparate without informing their enemy of what they were planning, but Harry still didn’t entirely focus on getting away.

Hermione suddenly had to fight back a gasp as she could feel her body moving back to her true self and knew that Harry was experiencing the same as she heard the same vocalization she had been about to let go.

Yet, in this minute her suspicion was confirmed as the corps in front of her tilted her head and stared at both. Her mouth opened, and several hissing sounds escaped her mouth.

“Yes, I’m Harry Potter.” Harry confirmed, and Hermione gripped her wand and Harry’s hand tighter. It was most likely Nagini! But how? That’s why Harry could understand it.

“Harry, we need to go now!” she urged and concentrated on an apparition point yet was suddenly stopped when several things happened.

Mrs. Bagshot hissed something darkly at them and Harry flinched, groaned and swayed, his knees buckled, and he let go of her hand to touch his head. Something was happening to the horcrux as it twitched so hard that it moved. The foul darkness emitted from it and now all of a sudden form Mrs. Bagshot was stifling and Hermione drew on the Force to clear her mind. Why had she not felt that darkness before. She gazed back to the corps, but it wasn’t standing anymore. Instead the tail of the large snake was slithering out of her neck. It was a dreadful sight and Hermione cursed angrily. She knew him well enough by now to see that he was looking into Voldemort’s mind. Her loss of focus had cost her dearly and Hermione could almost hear her aunt’s voice berate her for that possibly fatal mistake.

 

She tried to reach Harry’s hand again, but the bloody snake moved too fast and thrashed her tail against her midsection and forced her back a few steps while she struck Harry’s forearm as he was throwing a curse against her and he unfortunately let go of his wand which rolled under the table. Hermione hit the Python with several cutting curses and as she saw Harry hastily crawl away from it towards the table she even dared to aim an Avada Curse at the snake which seemed to enrage her even more. It seemed as if the room was filled with the snake as it was thrashing, striking and turning, in every direction. It smashed shelves from the wall, and splintered china flew everywhere as Hermione spotted Harry finally reach his wand, while she kept that bloody thing occupied. Jumping, leaping and evading the snake with aide of the Force. Sith, she wished to have a fully functioning lightsabre now instead of her wand. It would make things so much easier and she would certainly have gotten rid of the bloody snake.

Suddenly there was a horrible crunch and Harry yelled incoherently and helplessly while convulsing on the floor under the table: “He’s coming, He’s coming!” while he was still holding the now splintered wand.

Hermione cursed and sent another curse at the snake, but it only grazed it. It seemed that Voldmort had put some protection spells on his pet. Hermione shoved her sleeve back and displayed her special vambrace, just as the Python elevated her head ready to strike her and the young witch released and detached her grappling line and pinned the snake partly onto the hanging wooden  ceiling beam  as it wound around the snake and the beam and with two extra taps on her display she remotely released the paralyzing electro-shocks which were part of grappling line. The snake was hissing and thrashing and obviously tied to get out of it, but it was unfruitful. The sizzling sound gave the young Jedi witch some satisfaction as she quickly jumped to Harry under the table grabbed her best friend’s hand and apparated him out of the hellhole before Voldemort could get to them.

 

* * *

 

 

Draco Malfoy was shivering in his own house. He wanted to be everywhere but here. His mother had suggested that it would probably better if he moved to their old and barely used manor in France, which had even stronger wards and nobody, except his parents knew about it. But he couldn’t leave his parents alone. His father was slowly turning into an alcoholic and his mother a very nervous bundle although she seemed calm on the outside. But he knew her well enough to see the subtle signs of nervousness. Today was Christmas eve and although his mother had tried to make a small effort and put together a small celebration in one of the upper rooms it had been a gloomy, surreal experience, which had suddenly been interrupted by the burning of the dark mark on his left sleeve. 

Moments ago, the dark Lord’s most loyal followers had been summoned once again to his Headquarters, which still happened to be in his home. The last he had heard was that the dark Lord had been travelling to find something that would give him an advantage over Potter. Wherever he was. Draco had been forced to tell the Ministry everything he knew about the three fugitives, but it hadn’t been a lot that they hadn’t known already. His mother had been present at each session with the Deatheaters’ questioning as support for him.

He could see that the dark lord was seething but seemed able to barely keep his anger under control, yet his mood seemed to have transferred to his pet snake which slithered hissing angrily around the table, snapping at anyone who dared to move even a millimetre. It could be just his imagination, but it seemed that the snake had nasty red weal winding around her body. Had the snake been attacked? It would certainly explain the Dark Lord’s wrath. Who had managed to wound her? This was dangerous, and he could feel his rapid heartbeat in his throat. The last time they had been seated at this very table had been the day when he had watched a former teacher of Hogwarts being swallowed by the nasty big python. He would never get that out of his mind again. Although he did not have classes with this woman, he had known her to be quite a cheerful woman. He hoped that he would be spared to see someone else being swallowed alive by the Dark Lord’s pet python.

“You probably wonder why I summoned you all at this late hour.” The pale dark Lord asked his followers and Draco tensed and could have sworn that the temperature dropped a few degrees.”

Hearing almost silent occasional gasps, it seemed that his father’s heartbeat had also increased although he tried to hide this fact.

Some of the other Deatheaters were nodding eagerly, his aunt was hanging on every word of the dark Lord and he only hesitantly nodded.

 “Well, you see. Not an hour ago I was disturbed on my quest and summoned to Gothric’s Hollow because none other than our Desirable Nr° 1 Harry Potter trapped into one of our well-placed traps.” The dark Lord paused.

There was a loud thundering cheer around the table, but Draco didn’t join in. If Potter were captured, then the Dark Lord’s mood wouldn’t be as volatile as it was now. So, he must have escaped again.

The dark wizard raised his hand and the table became silent again. “But as you can see the coward narrowly managed to escape again” he hissed accusingly narrowing his red eyes. Bellatrix shoulders slumped.

“It seems that we have underestimated the so-called ‘golden trio’ quite a bit.” He snarled, and everyone jumped. “Brave Nagini here, sprung the trap and almost met her demise by the two assailants.”

Draco fought to keep his surprise at bay. Two? Potter, Weasley and Granger were inseparable except during the duration of their fights. In Hogwarts there had been several severe fights among them, but they had always pulled through. Did that mean that they had lost one. So, they were weakened. That wasn’t good for the light side.

“I’m sorry my lord.” Severus enquired. “Two?”

“Ah, Severus.” The dark Wizard grinned, which Draco found quite disconcerting. “Very sharp headmaster. Only two entered Gothric’s Hollow under the guise of Polyjuice Potion. It wore off during their fight with Nagini.”.

Draco gulped as he remembered that Severus had discovered upon his return to Hogwarts that his personal potion collection and cupboard had been plundered. It had even caused the Slytherins to tiptoe carefully around their new headmaster.

“It seems that the Golden Trio has been reduced to only a duo.” Voldemort remarked, and an excited murmur arose.

“The Weasley boy must have left them sometime after the Ministry’s attack. Yaxley, was there visible indication that the youngest Weasley boy has returned to his family?” he asked the unpleasant man who shook his head.

“None. My Lord. We have our best snatchers on the family’s tail.”

“Shouldn’t we try to capture the Weasel then?” Bellatrix asked the dark Lord submissively. “With Weasley in our hand, Potter surely would rush to the rescue.”

“An excellent idea, Bellatrix.” The dark Wizard acknowledged, and she beamed at his praise.

“But, surely Potter wouldn’t be as stupid as to fall into this trap. Not after a rift that obviously separated the three.” One of the Death Eaters cut in.

“You are wrong, Wexley.” Snape drawled. “That’s exactly the sort of trap Potter wouldn’t be able to resist. There have been fights among the trio before, but the Gryffindor he is he would dive head first into danger to save his friend, no matter their quarrel.”

Draco nodded in agreement. Was this what true friendship looked like. He knew that he would be able to count on Blaise, but all his other ‘friends’ he wasn’t so sure about.

Snape continued: “But… Hermione Granger is the brains behind the trio, so she might stop Potter from coming to Weasley’s aide. The two boys wouldn’t have lasted a day without her. She is not to be underestimated.”  The Deatheaters scoffed at the mentioning of her.

“But surely with a bleeding heart like hers, she wouldn’t let her best friend die.” Bellatrix countered him.

“A few month ago, I would have agreed with you, Bellatrix.” Snape answered. “But she always was the more driven by logic than emotion in contrary to the other two thunderheads and her actions in the last few months have shown a different shade of character in her. Where Potter and Weasley are hesitant to kill, she didn’t mind building death traps to take as many of our people down.  So, it is possible that she would consider letting Weasley die to protect Potter.”

“But Potter, wouldn’t.” Draco blurted out before he could stop himself, his parents’ heads snapping in his direction and all the attention turned to him. Even those scary red eyes.

“You have something to add, Draco?” the Dark Lord prodded and Draco mentally cursed that he had spoken aloud and slammed his mental defences into place. If the trap they were planning failed, then it could mean the end of him. He just should have kept his mouth shut.

“Go on, Draco. You’ve been in school with them.” He jabbed, and Draco took a deep breath.

“Ahm, Potter wouldn’t leave Weasley in our hands even though Granger would try to stop him. She might hex him to prevent him from saving the Weasel, but Potter would probably find a way.  He would possibly drag her along when she realizes that he won’t relent to her logic.”

“Thank you for sharing this information, young Draco.”  Voldemort drily stated as if he had already come to the same conclusion.

“Capturing Weasley shouldn’t be that difficult.” Snape remarked indicating his low opinion of the ginger.

“We’ll inform the snatchers and will conduct thorough searches of the Weasley’s home, hostels, guesthouses and inns.” The newly appointed slimy minister of magic reassured them. “He won’t be able to hide anywhere.”

* * *

 

Hermione had worked hard to get her friends fever down and had even needed to use a severing charm to remove that cursed item from Harry’s chest. To avoid any lasting damage, or possible infection she had cleaned the wound and even put a bacta plaster on it, but it seemed that it would scar as the wound had been created by a cursed object. He was lying lower bunks beneath a heap of blankets, while Hermione used a cooling charm and a sponge to get his body temperature down. He had been shouting mourning and cursing while thrashing his limps in all directions. Now he stirred slowly, and Hermione stopped her ministrations.

He took in his surroundings and Hermione explained what had happened. Harry apologized time and again to her and she stopped him. After all she did have a bad feeling about visiting Godric Gryffindor’s birthplace, but with half a mind she had believed Harry’s insistence. At least they now could scratch it of their list. Harry was very dismayed at the loss of his wand and she could feel his sadness as if he had lost a very dear friend. Mending it had not been possible.

Hermione stood up and summoned something from the depth of her bag.

“Here try this one.” She held it out to him and Harry blinked unbelievingly. “You have a spare wand?”

“Not exactly. I assumed that it might be a clever idea to have additional wands in case they reinstall the trace on them. I mean, I know that it is Wizarding law that the trace disappears as soon as you become of age, but quite frankly, I don’t trust them at all.”

Harry took it and mentally compared it with his own wand. “Something is different.” Harry stated, and Hermione nodded. “Every wand maker works differently. This was one of the last ones made by Gregorovitch.” She told him, and Harry gulped.

“Ollivander is Vol— ahm— the Fisherking’s prisoner and Gregorovitch is dead.” He said using their code. If it weren’t for you, I’d be without a wand right now.”

“Nice to be appreciated.” Hermione told him and ordered strictly. “Now, back to bed. You need rest!”

Harry mockingly saluted her as he lay back down.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Hermione was sitting with crossed legs on the cold hard floor and sorted through her collected tech parts and laid them on a towel: Magnetic stabilizer rings, green energy modulation circuits, cycling field energizers, power vortex rings, power cells and several tubes and wires. It didn’t make any sense to her but there had to be something connecting these things. It almost seemed as if she had too much stuff for a lightsabre. She could hear the happy gentle singing again. A song that was only meant for her and her alone. That’s why she had apparated four times after Gothric’s hollow until the last stop had been here. She knew why she had apparated here although it could have been dangerous. It was dangerous due to the closeness to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, but with the proper enchantments they were quite safe.

 Harry would probably throw a fit, when he realized where they were, but she needed to be here. It was no use. She was overthinking the problem about her not yet existing lightsabre again. She knew the theoretical diagram, her parents had shown her by heart, yet each lightsabre was a bit unique. It would have been extraordinarily useful against the snake and she decided it could not wait any longer. She needed a fully functioning lightsabre. Yes, she knew that it would raise questions and she wasn’t ready to share her family’s history with Harry or someone else, but they needed to make more headway in their search of the horcruxes. She had hesitated to carry her blasters strapped to her side as firearms in Britain were strictly forbidden and she had not known if they would cross paths with Muggles. Now she decided all bets were off. She needed to be better armed.

She took a deep breath, cleared her mind as she had been taught to by her parents but met some difficulties as her many thoughts swirling around her mind were not as easily vanquished. She tried again, let the Force flow through her and this time it worked. She directed the Force towards her sorted scrap metal and asked it for guidance for building it. Slowly the picture in her mind became clearer. More and more parts joined her inner vision and moved hovered before her inner eye. She now was able to see an order where each place was supposed to be and used the Force to bring the different pieces together. Some of the pieces where quite stubborn and she lost grip of them and the hovering pieces clattered back onto the towel. But she was equally stubborn and started again. And again. After a few false starts she started to get a hang on it and opened her eyes to examine her work, while never letting go of the Force. Hermione smiled. It seemed that she would need two crystals as she could see two skeleton lightsabres that were only missing crystals and hilts. She planned on getting the first in the next few hours.

“What are you doing, Hermione?” Harry’s voice came from behind her and Hermione jumped, lost focus and the tech pieces scattered back on the towel. She had been so engrossed in her task that she had lost sight of her immediate surroundings.

“Harry”, she awkwardly cleared her throat. “How long have you been awake?” she enquired.

“Long enough to see that.” Harry gestured to the scrap metal and the air and mimicked the hovering. “Whatever you just did.”

“Ahm, anyway I just went outside the tent and was a bit confused.” He told her, and Hermione took a deep breath to prepare her for his anger but surprisingly he it didn’t come.  “Why are we in Sirius old cave? Isn’t that too dangerous or too obvious?”

“Yes” Hermione sighed pocketing her tech in her pouch again. “We are in Sirius and Buckbeak’s old cave, but nobody except Dumbledore and Sirius, Ron and Galen and us know about it. I put strong enchantments at the entrance and in the immediate area. We are quite safe” she assured him “and I thought that we might stay warm for a change. At least for two days.” Technically her parents had known about it too, but with their altered minds they had temporarily forgotten it.

“Good thinking.” Harry concurred but trailed off as they could hear light steps outside of their tent. Someone was here! Hermione didn’t feel any danger and as she concentrated she had some idea who it could be, but nonetheless she stood up and carefully stepped out of the tent with her wand raised. Harry followed her with his new one. She could feel his anxiety.

 “Hey, Ner vod. (=sister)” Galen greeted them sheepishly and although Hermione could feel that it was her brother. His presence here was worrisome. Harry kept his new wand trained at her brother and Hermione didn’t put hers down.

“Ba'jur, beskar'gam, Ara'nov, aliit, …” (= Education and armor, Self-defense, our tribe…) she began and signalled him to continue. She just wanted to be sure that it was her brother. Galen rolled his eyes but continued the little rhyme, their grandmother had taught them and that was thought to all little children in the Mandalorian culture to help them learn the tenets of the Resol'nare:

“Mando'a bal Mand'alor—, An vencuyan mhi.” (=Our language, our leader— All help us survive.).

Hermione lowered her wand, signalled Harry to do the same and with two steps she was in front of her brother and pulled him close for a bone crushing hug, which he laughingly returned. Somethings would never change, it seemed.

He greeted Harry, who still was a little vary of him and they went back into the tent, but Hermione continued to be on edge.

“Ok, Galen.” She urged him. “Spit it out. How did you find us? Did you break my enchantments?”

“What makes you think that I was specifically looking for you.” Galen teased her, but Hermione shook her head. “You are here, which means that I must have overlooked something in our protection. Tell me what it is. It’s vital to our survival.”

“Since when is she like that?” Galen asked Harry and ignored Hermione’s question, who shrugged grinning “You mean bossy. Since I can remember.”

“Hey, I’m right here you two. Now. Galen. Please answer the question.” Hermione protested.

“Relax, Sis.” Galen told her smugly. “First, you’ve tripped the wards I set up around the temp… ahm… cave and second you have a tracker in your commlink.”

“What?!” Hermione jumped up from the bench and dashed to her bag. A moment later she had her commlink in her hand and took it apart only to discover the active red round tracker that had the size of her little fingernail. 

“Haar'chak” (=Damn it) she cursed fixing her brother with an angry stare. When had her brother managed to put the tracker in her commlink.

“For Mando’s sake, Galen why?” she asked him. “Do you realize that this in the wrong hands could have lead the Deatheaters straight to us.” She threw it on the ground and stomped onto it, shattering it in thousand pieces.

Her brother looked a bit apologetic, but she could sense that he wasn’t. Not one bit. Overprotective brother, that he was.

“No, they would need your frequency and the correct data to decrypt the data.” He defended herself.

“Why did you not simply use a phone?” Harry asked confused. He assumed the commlink was either the predecessor of the mobile phone or some more advanced tech.

“Because with the phone the Muggle authorities would have been able to track us and in so doing the Ministry of Magic.” Galen answered him. “The current administration even has Muggles under the Imperius Curse.”

“The subjugation of the muggles.” Hermione solemnly stated remembering the statue in the Ministry. “Anything else you might want to divulge?” she asked him, he nodded. “Not sure you’re aware of this, but there is a taboo on You-know-who’s name now. Means whenever someone speaks his name they can locate you.”

“Merlin! No, we didn’t know.” Harry told him with racing heart. “Thanks.”

“That is clever.” Hermione grudgingly concurred. “Because they know that Harry is one of the few, who actually have no problem saying his name.

Galen nodded and pulled out the Daily Prophet.

“And, you two made the front page again.” He smirked, and Hermione detected that her elder brother was partially proud of her. 

“First the ministry stunt, great handiwork by the way, then Grimmauld Place and now Bathilda Bagshot. The reward for your capture is steadily raising.”

“Great.” Hermione murmured sarcastically. “The higher the reward the more people will be willing to turn us in if things get even worse out there.” She scanned the article about them and found to no surprise that they were blamed for Mrs. Bagshot’s demise. There was no mentioning about Nagini, so she had to assume that Snake had survived.

“I can understand the diversion at the ministry. It made tactical sense, but what I can’t understand is Grimmauld Place.” Galen told her. “That was just a bloodbath, without any tactical sense.”

“So, they did go into Grimmauld Place.” Harry cut in and Galen nodded. “19 casualties and two survivors. The two will stay invalids for live.” Harry was shocked, and Hermione had to admit that she did feel a bit guilty, but there had not been any alternative. Or so she thought.

“Galen, it was necessary.” Hermione protested at her brother’s accusing tone. “Why do I have the feeling that Grimmauld Place is the real reason why you are here. And Bathilda Bagshot was already dead when we visited her. Nagini, You-know-who’s snake was inside her dead body.”

“I’m not accusing you, Hermione, but it seemed a bit much. Why was it necessary? You could have killed innocent people.” He enquired, and Hermione sensed that he was worried about her.

“The people hunting us are hardly innocent. I know that not all the people in the Ministry are Deatheaters and are forced to work for the new regime, but Yaxley would never have taken any other ministry official with him to Grimmauld Place that wasn’t a Deatheater as the non-deatheaters could easily have leaked something important to the Order and in so to the Wizarding Public. Each Deatheater I take out is one less to do harm to us or in the future. So, in a way it was a pre-emptive.”

 “Pre-emptive strike! What!” Galen’s eyes bulged out and he changed into Basic:” Jedi don’t make pre-emptive strikes.”

“Yes, and see where it has gotten us. To the brink of extinction.” Hermione shouted back angrily and took a deep breath to calm herself. “Jedi don’t make pre-emptive strikes, but Mandalorians do.”

Harry nervously fiddled with his new wand and looked between the two quarrelling siblings. He had no idea what they were talking about, but it seemed that there was a lot that he did not know about his best friend. It seemed that she had even rendered her brother speechless. He was also uncomfortable with her idea of a pre-emptive strike and was glad that even her brother felt as he did. But he now understood her anger with Dumbledore.

“You’ve clearly spent too much time with the Nite Owls.” Galen grumbled still in Basic remembering Hermione’s renewed vigour in training after she had returned from her fifth year at Hogwarts. She was a fierce duellist, due to their father who had been a battle master in the Order, but it seemed that this had not been enough for her anymore. She had spent rather four weeks after returning from Hogwarts on Mandalore training with her aunt’s fierce group, than at home with their parents and the other Force sensitive families.

“The Nite Owls prepared me better for warfare than Jedi Training ever could.” She answered him. “And this is a war, that we can’t afford to lose.” Her aunt’s face had been quite comical, when she had asked for her permission to train with them and had told her that she was not allowed to complain about anything the Nite Owls would throw at her. And she hadn’t. Bo-Katan had taken back over the training of their clan after the Clone Wars and especially after the Saxon Clan had betrayed her knowing that they would need it. But training exclusively with the Nite Owls was even tougher. Those had been the hardest training exercises she had ever had in her live.

“Mum and Dad won’t like to hear that.” Galen told her.

“I know. It doesn’t mean that I leave the Jedi path.” Hermione tried to assure him, “or I wouldn’t be in this cave right now but relying solely on the Jedi way won’t help us win this war.”

“I understand.” Galen sighed and relented, “but I don’t want you to lose yourself.”

“I won’t.” Hermione promised with steady voice but could sense that her brother still wasn’t entirely pacified, but he chose not to say anything more about it.

Harry uncomfortably cleared his throat as it seemed that whatever the quarrel between the two siblings had been, was over: “Anyone hungry?”

* * *

 

Next morning:

Hermione was sitting in kneeling position in front of the tent facing the wall she knew to be the entrance to a hidden Jedi temple. In her meditation she was entrenched in the Force. More so in the close vicinity of the temple. It felt ancient, but calming and protective against the dark raging storm of war outside. The song resounding through the Force was calling her again. Galen had entered the cave a few hours ago. Harry had been mesmerized when Hermione and Galen had stretched out with the Force and opened the hidden entry. The wall had reacted to them and changed to a transparent shade before it had moved upwards to reveal a long hallway which her brother had gone into alone. She had stayed behind to look after Harry in case somebody would detect their encampment, but it would soon be her turn to enter to finally answer the call of her crystal, which she could hear even now. Through the Force she detected that her brother’s feelings ranged from awe, fear, trepidation, hopelessness, calm acceptance and finally happiness. It appeared that the temple would challenge them for their crystals. A challenge of mind perhaps. She felt him come back again and he was projecting serene happiness through the Force. A moment later she felt the vibration around her as the wall slowly moved upwards and Galen stepped through and beamed at her displaying two transparent crystals at her.  “Seems like I’m going to fight with a Shoto.” He remarked as the door closed after him again. Harry, apparently having heard the wall moving up curiously emerged from the tent with a sleep in his eyes.

“Still remember the diagram?” she asked Galen who nodded at her. “Your turn, Sis.”

She looked back at Harry and contemplated if they should obliviate afterwards but decided that she would resolve this after her gathering.

She stood up and focused the Force and felt her brother do the same and the wall slipped open again and with a determines step she stepped through and let the wall slip back into place.

An eerie silence engulfed her that seemed to focus the song towards her and although she had nothing to light her way the long corridor spiralling downwards seemed illuminated by the dull light emitted by the stone around her. The slippery floor changed into steps spiralling downwards. As her sight adjusted to the dim light Hermione could detect that the walls were adorned with simple, yet masterful reliefs displaying faceless figures with hoods, sometimes in meditation position, sometimes in distinct positions reminiscent of the different stances of the combat forms and some figures seemed to be mirrored by others. As Hermione stepped down further down the stairs, each step resounding dully from the walls, she could see references to the three pillars of the Jedi: A triangle comprised of four smaller triangles, representing the Force and its different manifestations. An empty circle on a lengthy line that had two rhombuses under on it, situated under the circle, representing knowledge. A filled circle inside a pillar, representing self-discipline. After each symbol she detected further scenes that seemed to describe the importance of each pillar.

Hermione reached the bottom of the stairs, turned around the corner and stepped through a high archway, about fifty feet high, if she guessed correctly, into a circular room and gaped in awe. It looked majestically. The main chamber, at least she assumed that it was the main chamber, was so high that she could barely make out the ceiling and what looked like a large pulsating crystal illuminating the chamber. The centre of the room was dominated by two hooded statues of lightsabre-wielding Jedi, ringed by carved obelisks that sprouted from the rounded floor. The greyish round walls were reliefs of pillars winding upwards, making the chamber appear even larger than it already was. Hermione stepped further inside, and the crystal above became lighter as she felt a wave of the Force wash over her. She gasped at the overwhelming sensation as she suddenly became aware of the current dark raging storm of war outside of the temple, the dark oppressive storm of the past which had brought the Jedi Order to its knees and the endless possibilities that could be her future. As she stepped towards the middle of the room, her gaze drawn to the mosaic which displayed the sign of the Jedi Order, yet something seemed to be different. The colouring was like Jing and Yang. Was this temple older than that on Coruscant? She could feel the strong currents of the force in the air around her and facing the entrance at the opposite side of the chamber she followed the beckoned song of the crystals.

As she stepped through the bulky arch the Force washed over her and she lost sight of the inner workings of the temple. Instead she was now standing inside the freezing cold Great Hall at Hogwarts. Large rubble of the familiar grey stones was scattered everywhere around her, big, broken wooden beams, which had supported the ceiling were lying among it, the large rose window, which was normally situated behind the table of teachers was shattered, its’s colourful sharp shades partially on the dusty, slimy red floor. Hermione jumped and screamed, her pulse accelerating, knocking the air out of her lungs. It wasn’t slim. It was blood! She was wading through rivers of blood. Her head shot up again and her heart stopped. Among the debris were dead, slain pupils, teachers, pets, members of Dumbledore’s army, members of the Order, the Weasley’s were scattered lying in odd angles, trenched in the red rivers of blood, staring at the dark night where the ceiling was supposed to be, Lupin and Tonks were laid next to each other, their hands stretched out as if they were  desperately trying to reach the other.

“No.” Hermione murmured desperately trying to get rid of this vision. But to no avail. Her gaze was drawn to the floor next to the hourglasses of the houses, where she spotted familiar faces. Hermione wailed as she saw Ron’s ginger hair on the floor. His dead milky gaze was accusingly directed at her. Her dear brother Galen was lying in a ninety-angle degree to Ron with blood oozing out of his eyes, nose and mouth. Hermione put her right hand over her heart and took a deep breath. This was a vision. A vision of her worst nightmare. It had to be. But it could show her future. No. Her eyes still lingered on her brother but was drawn towards a body that was protectively lying draped over her ginger friend Ron as if Harry had tried to protect him from somebody and failed.

“You failed, filthy little Muddblood!” came from behind her and she turned and stared into the red glowing snake eyes of none other than Lord Voldemort. “I’ve won. Harry Potter is dead. And you will soon follow. Everything you’ve known or loved will soon be eradicated”

“No.” Hermione ground out balling her fists angrily trying to draw onto the force, but it slipped her grasp. “As long as I breathe, I will find a way to bring you down! I will find a way to protect my family, my friends and everyone that needs protection. It’s my duty to use my powers to defend and protect the innocent according to the Jedi Order.”  

“But you’re not a Jedi.” Voldemort taunted and laughed heartily. “And never will be.”

His laughter turned into an even more sinister laughing and he morphed into a dark shadowy figure. It was a creature dressed in a plain black robe, with no ornamentation or glitz of any sort. The face beneath that hood was old: old, and creased with hundred deep wrinkles, appearing like scars or burn tissue. But it’s eyes were… A cold shiver ran up Hermione’s back. The eyes were bright yellowish and intelligent, all-knowing and utterly powerful. She felt the dark side radiate of it and knew exactly what this creature was. A sith. Not just any Sith. The Sith Master, that had destroyed the Jedi Order and thrown the galaxy into dark chaos and despair and that had brought Mandalore almost to its knees.

“Pathetic little child.” The old voice raspy voice growled. “I will find you, make you watch as I destroy everything you hold dear: Your family, your clan, your friends, the rebellion and the pathetic little bunch of Jedi survivors hiding in the shadows.

A strong wind was wafting around her and the scenery changed, yet instead of Hogwarts she was standing in the normally bright stronghold of her family. Fallen debris of the atrium and the walls were scattered around the floor, smouldering bodies with her clan’s markings were strewn on the sides and Hermione nauseously stepped back when the stench of burned flesh hit her nostrils. No! It wasn’t bodies. Just the armour was left. None of the bodies. What had happened here?! She stepped back and detected her aunt’s armour lying next to her cousin’s as if she had tried to shield him. He had been groomed to follow in Satine’s footsteps by their murdered aunt. She became aware of three other bodies that were not burnt and as her gaze was drawn to them she yelled out again in shock: Her families’ parts were lying separated from their severed heads, their glazed over eyes staring at her accusingly. As there was no blood oozing and they did smell partially burned she deduced that they were cut in half with a lightsabre. The scenery was equally burning into her brain as the first one.

“This is an illusion. This isn’t real.” She repeated breathlessly feeling her pulse in her throat as shivers ran down her back.

The Sith laughed maliciously and ignited two red lightsabres:” It may be.” He snickered darkly.

“But I assure you I am not.” He lunched at her with his right lightsabre and Hermione dived to the side evading it, feeling the sizzling hot blade miss her just a few millimetres, singing her left sleeve. Rolled to the side and quickly stood up again. Quickly searching for a weapon, she could use. But there was none. No lightsabre, no blaster nothing. She dodged his attack again and realized that she wasn’t really evading him. Rather he was herding her towards a corner. She was dripping over an armour, which scrambled into dust as she fell on it, angrily crawling away from the advancing Sith crackling happily at her misfortune. Shhe could not give up. This had to be an illusion. He couldn’t be here. She had to find a way out of here and prevent these events from coming to pass like this.

“Looking for a way out.” The emperor taunted swirling both of his blades to clear his path from debris and obstructions while staring at her with his menacing, yellowish eyes.

Hermione hit the wall with her back and stared back defiantly. She would not give him the satisfaction of being defeated so easily. The Force was still not answering to her call, as much as she tried to summon it to catapult the advancing menace away from her.

“There is always a way out.” She spat using the wall to help her up again. “I just have to remember my training.”

She took a deep breath and felt how her lungs felt with much oxygen again. She reached out to the Force another time, but this time she asked for guidance. And the Force filled her entire being with light again and assured her that she was not alone. She could do this.

“Are you ready to meet your demise, girl.” The Sith taunted. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” Hermione answered balling her fists acknowledging her worst fears. “Afraid of loosing my family, my clan, my friends. Yes. Loosing this war to Voldemort, the Rebellion and Mandalore to you. Absolutely.” She rebuked as the Sith was stopping, just one sword length away from her, raising his right lightsabre to strike her down.

“But, I’m not afraid of doing what needs to be done to stop you and Voldemort. I’m ready.” She stood tall and awaited the inevitable strike. He snarled and brought his sabre down on her just as the Force finally filled every fibre of her being again and the tune was resounding more loudly all around her. As she opened her eyes again she stood in a cave with countless crystals surrounding her. But only two on opposite sides of the cave were whining more brightly than the others. They were luring her to take them and join with her.

With overwhelming happiness, she took both and put them together in her left hand, where their melodies joined, resounding through the Force. She inspected them closer and realized that only one of the crystals was transparent, the other strangely wasn’t.

She pocketed them in her pouch, which she had brought with her and slowly made her way back to the tent, still processing what she had just seen in her two illusions. As she ascended the stairs of the long corridor again she realized that she wasn’t alone in the temple any longer. Her brother and Harry were sitting on the steps and were apparently holding their breaths listening intently. Harry had her wand trained at her when she rounded the corner, but lowered it, when he realized that it was her shape. Questioning what she had missed she raised her eyebrow.

Galen whispered.  “K'uur (=Hush!) Did you say You-know-who’s name by any chance.”

Hermione bit her lips as she remembered that she had spoken his name. Twice even. “Haar'chak (=Damn it!). Hermione cursed touching her front mentally berating herself. With her eyes she could see that Harry, still trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, held their tent and apparently everything in it, miniaturized in his hand. “I’m afraid I did.” 

“They haven’t found their way in yet?” Hermione asked whispering and Galen shook his head.

“Nope. Either our wards are that strong or the temple is protecting us.” Her brother rumbled barely audible, but Hermione sensed that Harry was soaking up any information. “As the cave entrance seemingly closed by itself, I suspect the latter.” Hermione’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. So the temple had protected Sirius as well.

“This is a temple.” He asked tentatively. “What kind of temple?”

“Yes.” Hermione answered with low voice. “The kind of temple that protects.” Galen snickered at her answer and she shot him a sharp look.

“That’s no answer.” Harry protested angrily, and she sensed that he was on a short fuse at the moment, due to the loss of his wand, to the frustration of their lack of progress, at his anger at Dumbledore, who had not prepared him properly for what needed to be done and because he missed Ron’s companionship.”

“Harry.” Hermione whispered cautiously sitting down. “Some secrets are not ours to share but depending on how long the Darksiders are going to linger in the area, we you might find out soon anyway.” It calmed her friend somewhat, but not entirely.

“You are not using any light? Then, how can you walk in here without dripping?” he enquired curiously, but Hermione had no idea what he was talking about. It was dim light, but the walls and the floor emitted soothing light that guided their way around. Then suddenly it hit her. The walls were imbued with the Force through the high concentration of cyber crystals. That’s why she and her brother were able to see. But Harry was magically gifted. How could he not see in here?

“Why are we not simply apparating?” Harry enquired, and Hermione wondered the same. They could easily apparate and the ones outside would be none the wiser, but Galen shook his head.

“That’s too risky. The strong concentration of the Force could interfere, and you could land somewhere else than you originally wanted and second you spoke the taboo, so if you would apparate right now, then the ministry could trace you for the next twenty-four hours.”

“If someone else apparates instead of me?” Hermione questioned him thinking about Harry, but Galen still shook his head. “It would be more challenging for them to trace you, but the taboo trace continues. The temple is masking your trace right now. So, the best thing we can do is to stay put until the taboo wears off.”

“Ok.” Hermione focused her gaze on Galen. “Seems like you’ve taken a sheet out of Fulcrum’s book.”

“Not just from Fulcrum. Aunt Bo-Katan didn’t just advise you, Ner vod. (=sister)” he answered proudly.

* * *

 

Outside of the mountain…

“Maybe it was a false alarm?” a mousy haired snatcher gasped desperately trying to catch his breath.

“The taboo was spoken twice. This wasn’t a false alarm.” A tall man with fair skin, and long, tangled brown hair with a red streak on one side barked angrily.  “Keep lookin’ “

He surveyed the area and saw more than fifty snatchers of different squads swarming the hillside, but so far there was nothing. The person having broken the taboo had most likely apparated already, but they could not find any residue of performed magic.  Greyback was crouching and climbing the rocks sniffing intently but he somehow also seemed to walk in circles as he ended up running into solid rocks. They had probed the area with all kinds of revelation spells, but there was nothing to be found. No secret or magically entry.

“Maybe one of the nasty little buggers in Hogwarts broke the taboo and the tracing was off.” Another one shouted. Scabior scoffed and angrily spit onto the grass. “He wouldn’t put it past the Dungheads in the Ministry that they could be wrong about it, but this place was very remote and maybe the person having spoken it was just that talented in magic.

For the next twenty-four hours their squads would be forced to search every little crevice this place had to offer. But that would mean that other fugitives would be slipping away.

In a small muggle village, a blond freckled boy with large horned glasses was silently slipping away before the patron of the small muggle Inn would realize that he had left without paying his two days fee. Unfortunately, he had still no idea how muggle money functioned, but after several too close encounters with snatchers he had decided to avoid wizarding villages and stayed at muggle inns or guesthouses. Usually places that looked shabby enough not to ask questions about his appearance. It had taken some time to get used to transform his hair by himself, he had stolen the glasses and replaced the lenses

. Ron, regretted his decision to leave his two friends, but as much as he wrecked his head he could not remember the reason for their fight or why they had been on the road in the first place. The only thing he was sure about was that they had some very important mission that they needed to finish, but his memory remained empty.

Each night he swore that he could hear Hermione’s voice beckoning him to come back to her and he remembered her sweet perfume, her soft hands, her bossy attitude, which he begrudgingly had to admit, really liked. He needed to find a way back to his friends. Surely, they needed him.   But what if the fight had been because Hermione had hocked up with his best friend instead. Nah. Harry had a crush on his sister. He was imagining things.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” a sickeningly sweet mocking voice came behind him and Ron jumped gripping his wand hidden in his jacket tightly.

…

 


	8. Chapter 8

Hermione was curled up under her warm down blanket drifting in and out of sleep contemplating how to proceed in their quest. For weeks she was working to assemble her two lightsabres, but each time she was nearly finished her focus slipped and everything clattered back to the ground forcing her to start anew. She had then tried to build each one separately but had soon realized that she would only been able to finish them together. She also had an uneasy feeling about the dark crystal. She had learned that each crystal was void of any colour until they were emitted for the first time. But the dark one seemed to be more volatile. What colour would this one create?

Her brother had left them after they had apparated to safety after the ending of the twenty-four hours. The snatchers had swarmed the hills and mountains around the temple, but it seemed that they had ben unable to detect the sacred place. He had left her with the address of one safe house in case they would need it but stressed that they should only use it if absolutely necessary. During their long wait on the temple stairs she had pestered him on what he was doing, and she had been astonished to learn that some people of the Force sensitive families were working underground to save and protect Muggle-borns, Squibs or other endangered people from the current administration. Galen had built up an entire spy network with wizards and witches from all over the world, which brought them out of the country. Several of his Durmstrang collegues including Krum were working for him. Victor’s participation had surprised her as he was at the height of his career and he had officially taken a year off.  And was according to Galen his second in command. They worked together with the Order, but only a few knew who the “Wrath” was. Just like Fulcrum’s network the cells were working independently, but he coordinated them. Hermione was proud of her brother and was one of the reasons why the death rate among the muggle’s or muggle-borns wasn’t higher.

They were currently in the forest of Dean after Harry had survived a nervous breakdown after realizing that his idol Dumbledore wasn’t as perfect as he had seemed to be and that he had not prepared him as best as he could have had. His constant dreams about Voldemort and Nagini, which caused him many sleepless nights had made his situation even worse. Hermione suspected that he was dealing with a mild form of PTSD, which was not unsurprising.  Here too snow lay on the trees all around and it was bitterly cold, but they were at least protected from the wind. They spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for warmth around a heater that Hermione had finally taken out from her bag and which was powered by one of the power cells that could only be find in the galaxy and not on Earth yet.

Suddenly something snapped in the air and Hermione bolted upright. Something had happened. Something monumental. Her drowsy tiredness was gone. Instead, it was replaced by a ready alertness. She pushed her hair out of her face and stood up quickly. Slightly wavering for a few seconds.

“Hermione.” She heard Harry’s call from outside. When she stretched out her senses she could detect his elation. He was happier and more opportunistic than a few hours ago. His depressed mood was gone.

“What’s wrong? Harry. Are you alright?” she called back slipping into her boots. Suddenly her senses recognized another human being next to Harry. Every fibre in her body became alert and she gripped her wand tightly with her right hand and loosened her blaster strapped to her left leg with her hand.

“It’s okay, everything’s fine. More than fine. I’m great. There’s someone here.”

“What do you mean? Who —?” She could sense a familiar presence and stopped her questioning when a familiar face entered the tent after her dark-haired friend who backed into a shadowy corner.

Ron stood there holding the sword of Gryffindor, while dripping onto the threadbare carpet.

Hermione’s mind was racing, and she mentally was preparing to move their location. She stepped like a sleepwalker towards Ron, whose hair had been turned into a dirty blonde. He was pale, and he seemed to have lost quite some weight. She stopped right in front of him scrutinized thoroughly. He smiled hopefully at her and raised his hands partly, but she didn’t return it.

Suddenly she quickly launched forward grabbing his right hand, turned her back towards him and flipped him over her shoulder hearing a loud plop when he hit the floor with his back. The sword clattering to the floor with a loud metallic clunk.

He wanted to stand up, but she stopped him locking him onto the floor with her boot, while pointing her wand towards his terrified face. “Don’t move.” She growled deeply.

“Hermione!” Harry protested trying to pacify her: “Calm down.”

“I will not calm down.” She shouted. Why could he not understand that she needed to know how he found them. He could be a plant by the enemy. He could have been turned against them.

“How did you find us?!” she enquired with blazing eyes locking them with his wide ones. Her brother had used a tracker. Ron didn’t have one. So, she must have overlooked something. Ron tried to wrestle himself out of her firm grip from under her boot, but it was useless and he moaned in pain.

“I asked you to stay, but you left us!” she accused him still pinning him to the ground.

“I know.” Ron whimpered. “Hermione, I’m so sorry. Really, I’m.”  She could sense that he was sincere, and it dampened her fiery mood, but she still needed to know how he had found them. 

“You come her after weeks and expect us to take you back as if nothing has happened.” She growled applying pressure to Ron’s shoulder again, who winced. “We could have been dead, for all we know. You could have died, and I wasn’t able to protect you both.” Hermione screamed. She could sense Ida hovering out of her bag, ready to strike. Galen had shaken his head after finding out that she had that droid with her. He didn’t like that droid.

Ron’s eyes filled with tears hearing the last part. She was angry because she had been worried about him.

“I knew you weren’t dead!” bellowed Ron. “You two are all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumours and mental stories, I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead.”.

“Hermione, I wanted to come back.” He cried with tears streaming down from his eyes, but I couldn’t find you at all and I had several run ins with snatchers. They are everywhere, and…”

“We know.” Hermione interrupted him coldly still training her wand on him. “Bottom line I evaded them and splinched myself again. He showed her his hand which was missing two fingernails. When I came back to the Riverbank. You were already gone.”

“Of course, we were. You can fill us in on the details later.” Hermione interrupted him rolling her eyes.

“There is only one thing I want to know right now. How did you find us?”

His hands disappeared into his pocket and pulled out a small silvery object.

“The Deluminator?” Hermione asked with incredulity.

Yes. Ron explained hastily  “It doesn’t just turn the lights on and off,” said Ron. “I don’t  now how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I’ve been wanting to come back ever since I left, but one day I was running from another group of snatchers and they nearly had me and I had nowhere else to go. I was out of options.” He was snapping for air as he rushed the sentences out of his mouth. “Then I suddenly heard your voice calling out to me. I turned it on, it’s light filled me and I apparated. Straight to where Harry was.”

“And he saved my life.” Her messy haired friend cut in. “When I found the Sword of Gryffindor, the horc… it fought me and wanted to drown me. He pulled me out of the water.”

“And then we destroyed that thing, whatever that is, that he had around his neck.” Ron continued their narration.

She took a step back, but still didn’t fully trust the situation. On the one hand she felt elated that Ron had found their way back, the butterflies in her stomach certainly spoke volumes, but her worry persisted. She saw the destroyed locket and could feel that the darkness within it was gone, but there was still the question on how they had found Gryffindor’s sword and ‘the will of the force’ would not cut it.

“Hermione, could you perhaps give him his memories back?” Harry asked her and snapped her out of her mind. “He’s back.

“No.” she stubbornly answered. “Until he can prove that he is under no influence than his own, I won’t return his memories to him. There is too much at stake. You know that and you will not tell him what we are doing, besides that we are searching for something important.” Hermione ordered Harry whose shoulders slumped in unison with Ron’s.

“Now, we need to get moving.”

“So, you’re not going to tell me about the memories she has taken from me?” Ron asked sitting in one of the bunks, while Hermione was outside on guard duty. For some reason she had not allowed them to get everything out of her bag. Only some necessities. It almost felt as if she expected some attack.

“I really want to.” Harry nodded apologetically. “But she’s right. You know, I probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for her. She saved my life on Christmas eve, when we sprung a trap. So, for now I agree with her. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Wait! You were in Gothric’s hollow? Are you mental!” Ron asked in astonishment. “They say that you two killed Mrs. Bagshot.”

“Yes, ahm, well we needed to rule it out and I thought that Bathilda Bagshot might have received something from Dumbledore that might help us against. Vol.. ouch…The Fisherking.” Harry jumped and answered wringing his hands in remembrance.

“Hermione was categorically against it at first, but she came anyway. But, don’t know how she does it, but she knew pretty soon that it wasn’t Mrs. Bagshot we were talking to.” He narrated some of what had happened in his former hometown.

“Blimey, who was it then?” Ron asked with raised eyebrows and Harry detailed exactly what he could remember from his confrontation with Nagini, which wasn’t a lot.

“Hermione fought Nagini on her own. Can’t remember a lot, but when I close my eyes I sometimes see her spinning, jumping and evading her the snake’s attacks as if she knew what that bloody snake would do next. Have you ever heard a snake wailing?” Harry asked Ron who shook his head.

“I had seen that the Fisherking was on his way to Gothric’s hollow, but I could also hear Nagini scream in agony. That’s a sound I can’t get out of my head again. Whatever Hermione has done to her it worked.”

“Blimey!” Ron exclaimed again. “When has she become so scary?”

. “I mean I really thoughts she was going to kill me back there.” He laughed hesitantly, and Harry nodded solemnly at his admission. “I mean, it’s as if the Hermione we know has been entirely replaced by a cold-hearted warrior or something?”

 “No, Ron. Think about it. Hermione always was quite headstrong and fierce.” Harry argued. “She sees things much clearer and more focused than we do and she tries to be strong for both of us so that we don’t have to be. I don’t know if she realized it, but she says your name when she’s asleep. Well, “he admitted “yours and others. But it basically sounds like an extensive list of people she wants to protect. But keep telling her your little story about the Deluminator and she’ll come around”

Ron’s grin widened happily. “But it’s true and besides, when did you become so wise?”

“I’m not. Just had a lot to think about while we were hiding from Snatchers because Hermione broke the taboo.”

“What in Merlin’s name!” Ron jumped up. “Hermione broke the taboo? I thought that you would be more inclined to say his name.” He nervously brushed his fingers through his hair.

“No.” Harry brushed his sleeve away to show him a braided bracelet. “Hermione drilled me into saying Fisherking instead and should I accidently start saying it shocks me to stop me.

“Does it hurt?” his friend asked touching it with his index finger, and Harry shook his head again. “No, it’s just irritating enough to stop me, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s better than Ida shocking me like she did with you.”

“That bloody thing shocked me? Knew there was a reason I don’t like that thing.” He grumbled sitting back down. “So, how did you evade the snatchers?” Ron asked him. “They’re a bit dim, aren’t they?”

“Dunno.” Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Never saw them face to face. We were in Sirius cave when the entrance closed by its own and Galen shifted the wall upwards to go further inside. Do you remember in fourth year, when the wall suddenly turned nearly transparent when Hermione touched it?”

“Yeah, sure.” Ron remarked sitting back down. “How could I forget about that? Sirius was thought that she was a loon when she walked around that cave like that. I did too to be honest.”

Harry chuckled in remembrance and nodded eagerly. “Yes. From what I could overhear that cave was the entrance to a hidden temple inside the mountain. Galen and Hermione went in there separately and came back with some sort of crystals.”

“Hold on, her brother? When did you meet her brother?” Ron cut in.

“Well, he found us in the cave, because he has placed some sort of tracker into one of Hermione’s things.” Harry explained. “She destroyed it and gave him a piece of her mind. He was the one who warned us about the taboo.”

“Well, he is truly scary.” Ron stated. “Should have guessed that they were siblings in fourth year.”

“Yes, right.” Harry nodded. “Anyway, Hermione tries every free minute that she isn’t trying to detect a clue in the books, assembling some scrap metal with these crystals from the cave, but she doesn’t tell me why. It’s just when I think that I know her, something else comes up that just shows how little we actually know about her. I mean we were in Hogwarts with her for years and didn’t realize that she had a brother.”

“That’s actually part of her charm, I reckon.” Ron commented. “It’s probably something that will help us. Another weapon perhaps? You know like that thing that is strapped to her leg.”

“Don’t know much about weapons, but that thing is not a Muggle gun.” Harry remarked. “At least I don’t think it is. It has no bullets.”

“Maybe it’s a toy gun. You said that Dudley had one as a child too?” Ron suggested, and Harry shook his head. “Hermione has volatile explosives in her bag, somehow I doubt that it is a toy gun, Ron. And Galen was wearing one too.”

Suddenly their cosy conversation was interrupted by a few plopps outside. Hermione quickly dashed through the parted entry. “Quickly, pack your things. We have company. They are searching the area.”

She turned to the hovering droid who was opening and closing its pincers and ordered in Basic: “Activation Code. ZV-626. You have authority to engage, but we need one snatcher alive.” It gave a few menacing chirps and disappeared through the entrance.

 

* * *

 

In the next few Minutes they hastily vanished and packed everything into Hermione’s bag until the only thing left was the cold ground under their feet and Ida floating above them in the air. An eerie silence was slowly spreading through the woods. Nothing dared to move. It seemed as if nature itself was holding its breath. It was literally the calm before the storm. The only sound the trio could detect was the trotting and the commands murmured by the snatchers, who had not detected their wards yet. So, her wards were working, but they had appeared not three hours after Ron’s appearance. So, chances were high that they had followed him somehow. She needed to find out how and eliminate the trace. She quickly took in the scene and counted the numbers, which Ida confirmed from above. Fifteen snatchers were slowly closing in to their location. She gathered the Force and summoned several grenades and smoke bombs from her utility belt.

“Ida, the small brunette staying out of range. We need her alive.” She told the droid in Basic who confirmed that it had understood the order.  

Never letting their enemies out of her eyes, she handed one grenade each to Ron and Harry, who took it carefully as they stood back on back to each other wands raised.

“Ok. Here is what we need to do.” She calmly instructed them. “On my mark you click the button on the grenades and throw it as far away from us as possible, but as close into the snatchers’ lines as you can. Can you do that?” Her two friends nodded hesitantly, but she needed confirmation and asked again, more firmly this time. “Can you do that?!”

“Yes.” Harry answered, and Ron mimicked him.

“Good.” Hermione said calmly. “Keep your wands ready. As soon as the explosions stop take out as many targets as possible. No hesitation and don’t freeze.” She reminded them, but mainly to herself.

“Get ready.” They would run into their wards any second. Her heartbeat accelerated in anticipation as she drew on the Force to guide her. Ida was already halfway to its own target using its own black colour as camouflage through the cold mists.

” Ouch.” One of the snatchers complained as he walked into the one in front of him. It looked as if he was poking the air. “Something’s there.” He called out playfully and the snatchers turned towards him and closed in.

“Now!” Hermione shouted activating two grenades and throwing it towards the line of nine snatchers in her visual field and rolled several smoke bombs after them.

Harry and Ron threw theirs and they could hear several explosions and devastated screams and her nostrils registered the smell of burnt flesh and freshly dug up earth. Hermione could feel the flickering of live through the force until their live forces disappeared. Two of the snatchers in her line were groaning in pain and she could feel the darkness still radiating from them. She quickly jumped out of her safe zone and towards the two survivors, who hurled weak curses at her which she blocked effortlessly with her wand and she reacted with drawing her blaster and …she froze. Setting traps without seeing the dead created by them was one thing but killing people eye to eye was something else. _Shit!_ She couldn’t do it!

One of them was hurling a green coloured curse at her and she quickly blocked it and retaliated with a blaster shot to his heart. Alright, she had done it. The second snatcher had died after he had sent his last curse towards her. She quickly turned and saw Ron and Harry duelling with two badly wrangled snatchers, while Ida had not only stunned their leader, but also taken care of the rest of the surviving snatchers according to her activation protocol. Hermione quickly spun around as she could spot one of the snatchers tricking him and sending a hex towards him. She quickly reacted and protected her friend with her wand and sent a plaster bolt through the man’s chest, who crumbled to the ground. Ida did the same with the one Harry was fighting with. 

While she let her two friends come to terms with the situation she quickly ran towards the stunned woman, snatched away her wand by splitting it into two pieces and put her in a partial body bind, while she tried to get her breathing under control again. She was panting. They had learned full body binds at Hogwarts, but Hermione remembered the partial body bind from one of her brother’s books.

“Enervate.” She murmured, and the woman’s eyes opened, and she shrieked seeing Hermione calmly hovering over her face while she was unable to move a muscle.

“How did you find us?” Hermione prodded her calmly hearing the shuffling steps of her two friends on the frozen ground.

“I won’t tell you anything. Mudblood.” The woman spat when she realized that she could only move her face muscles.

“You are not in any position to refuse to tell me what I want to know.” Hermione responded unfazed by the insult.

“It’s bitter cold on the ground, your wand…” she held the two broken pieces of the woman’s wand into her visual field, which caused the female to whimper. “is not functional any longer and you are in a full body bind. Your ‘friends’…” Hermione let her gaze sweep over the battlefield to emphasize the threat. “won’t be able to rescue you. So, you can remain stubborn and not tell me how you found us. In that case I will leave you lying in the cold with a full body bind and let you freeze to death. Of course, freezing to death will still be the better option for you as we are in the wild and there is a full moon tonight. Imagine that. A few werewolves on the loose. What could possibly happen?” The woman’s whimpers became stronger and more fearful.

“Or you could just answer me truthfully and I will modify your memory and let you go.” She suggested.

“If I tell you you’ll kill me anyway.” The woman hissed, but Hermione could detect a slight wavering in her voice.

“No, I won’t let that happen.” Harry cut in and stepped into the woman’s visual field, who snorted. “Harry Potter. So, my plan worked. The weasel brought us straight to you. It would have given me an advantage over Bellatrix. She wanted to capture him to lure you in. Was fun hunting him the last few days. Very creative for a pauper.” She sneered haughtily, and Hermione spotted Ron balling his fists. So, he hadn’t tricked the snatchers. They had tricked him. She should have known.

“Alright.” Hermione took back the incentive. “Enough stalling. What’s your answer? Are you going to tell us or not? Because if you are not then we will be on our way.”

“Alright, Alright.” The woman concurred hastily. “We replaced the trace back onto his wand after we tackled him. So, whenever he is doing magic, we can trace him.

“Anything else you might to divulge.” Hermione asked standing up and reading her wand “No.”

“Good. Next time we meet, I won’t be so merciful.” Hermione threatened pointing her wand at her and murmured “Obliviate.”

Harry may have intervened on the woman’s behalf, but she suspected that he had not thought about the possibility that the woman would day anyway by the hands of one of her own.

* * *

 

Hours later.

They were camping under an old bridge after Hermione had apparated with them and set new and stronger wards around them. Both her friends were strangely calm, and she could understand why. They hadn’t seen death that close, except for Sirius. Neither had she. She had frozen although she had not wanted to. She had sensed the characteristic darkness radiating of the snatchers, but for some reason she had not been able to take a life. It shouldn’t have been a problem, but it had been. It was harder doing that eye to eye and in a way, it did separate her from the death eaters. She did have a conscience.

It was a weakness that she needed to overcome, or they would fail. Her parents would probably tell her that it was good that she hesitated in taking a life. Jedi only had taken lives or killed when necessary. Korkie and the pacifistic part of the clan would agree with that. The Nite Owls, however would probably see it as a crippling weakness. She was right back in the mess. Going the Mandalorian way or the Jedi way. Her crystals seemed to reflect that. Had her mother struggled as strongly as she was now, after finding out about her heritage? She wouldn’t have found out had her grandfather not stalked her on Coruscant. But she had been raised by the Jedi Order. She really longed for her mother’s advice paired with that of her aunt. What if Galen was right and she would lose herself in this war? And this one was small compared to the one in the galaxy. And she had not searched the remaining bodies for any other clues that could have been useful. That was another oversight by her. But time had been pressing and she had not wanted her friends to be confronted with more traumatizing memories today.

She closed her eyes and yearned it to be all over. To have the possibility to sit in a cockpit again and just watch the stars shine as they were flying through hyperspace. They hardly made any progress. Ron had found his way back to them because of Dumbledore’s Deluminator, but she still hadn’t given him the memories back. He had destroyed the Horcrux because Harry had told him to. So technically he would be able to guess what they were doing, but she decided that she would still observe his behaviour for a few days and when she was entirely sure that he was himself, then she would return his memories to him.

She stood up and summoned another wand from her pocket and gave it to Ron.

“You can’t use your wand anymore.” She told him, and Ron nodded in understanding gripping it tightly with both hands. She could understand that he didn’t want to be parted of it, but even she had banished her own wand into the depth of her bag as she could not be sure that they would also try to reinstall the trace on hers. She had heard that they could only do this if they physically could touch the wand, but who was to say that they hadn’t another way of reinstalling it. That’s why she also was using another wand now.

He reluctantly handed her his old wand and took the other one.

“It’s 14", Willow, unicorn tail hair like yours, but made by Gregorovitch.” Hermione told him.

“Thank you.” He inspected the new one closely mesmerized that Hermione had apparently thought about everything.

* * *

 

He was sitting in his bed, shivering, the warm blanket drawn around him. A steaming tea cup on his nightstand. He didn’t want to get out of his room. What was the point? His father was drinking himself into oblivion, his mother was a nervous wreck, who cared deeply about him and who tried to shield him from the unwanted guests in their home.

His bloodthirsty, volatile aunt was even more erratic since they had found out that one of snatchers had gone against their orders and “let” the Weasel escape because she had been convinced that he would lead them to the other two fugitives. And in retrospect she had been right, but he was staring at the result of that on the front page of the Daily Prophet: Fifteen snatchers had been found dead and only their leader who had lost a month worth of memories had been found alive. He knew that the poor woman had been tortured for hours because of her incompetence until his aunt had finally relieved her from her excruciating pain. Her screams tearing through the manor would be forever ingrained in his mind. Why couldn’t this madness all be over? The Dark Lord gone. Peaceful. He missed the carefree days at Hogwarts, where he had only thought about how to get a raise out of the golden trio, getting good grades that only his arch enemy of Gryffindor had bested him at and playing Quidditch.

But even that had backfired during fourth year as the Durmstrang delegation had rallied around Granger after he had attacked her. The way one of the boys had reacted had terrified him. He had thought that he would be done for, hadn’t Snape and Karkaroff protected him. He had seen them jogging and what had seemed like sparring, but he had not found any evidence about how close they really were. Only that they had been close and had been speaking in a language that he had been unable to identify. Krum had also disappeared from the radar a few months ago. It had lead to quite some speculation as to why he had interrupted his career seemingly out of nowhere, but Draco suspected that he might be somewhere in the fight. After all he had been at the Weasley wedding, when they had attacked. As had the other young man been.

He inspected the picture of the battlefield again and felt the bile rise again. It showed “ministry officials” walking through barely identifiable burned or torn bodies. Apparently, all but a few of them had died instantly. Two had been killed by some sort of unknown spell, according to the Daily Prophet. The bounty for the capture of the golden trio had been tripled, yet the article warned about engaging the trio on their own as they were dangerous terrorists.

Potterwatch, which he sometimes secretly listened to in his room had also informed the listeners of this event but explained that they believed that whoever had done this had defended himself. Given that everyone in the country wanted them to be found and stop them from doing whatever they were doing he believed it. If anybody in the house would find out that he was secretly listening in to Potterwatch, it would cost his head, but he couldn’t help it. It seemed that they all were just as well organized as the Death Eaters were. And he hoped to hear some good news in this darkness. He doubted that the trio was just running. They surely were up to something. But nobody seemed to know anything. And the Dark Lord had come back from the dead somehow. Did he have a weakness that they tried to exploit? He hoped so.

There was a sharp knock on the door and he groaned. He wanted to be alone.

“Draco, are you alright?” His mother asked carefully peeking through the door.

“Yes, mother.” He replied dully. “Just don’t want to go downstairs.” She must have decided that it was safe to enter and came into his room taking in the scene with a worried look. “You shouldn’t read this so early in the morning.” She admonished him seeing that he was staring at the front page.

“Is it wrong for me to wish them to succeed, mother?” he murmured barely audible. His mother was a good occlumens.

“Why would you want that?” she sharply asked. “Look at the picture. Closely. That’s what will await us when they succeed.”

“I don’t think so.” Draco shook his head. “I mean, yes. Granger probably wouldn’t hesitate to murder me, but the other’s in the Order do not thrive on killing.”

“At best, we could hope for Askaban.” His mother hissed, and Draco sadly nodded, and anger flashed over his face. “That’s still better than hearing those screams of torture almost every day knowing that somebody is murdered in our basement. How many will come back as ghosts to haunt us, mother? I can’t take this much longer.”

“You have to stay strong, Draco.” His mother told him sternly brushing her hand over his fine hair.

“How can I when someone, who went to Hogwarts with me is held in our dungeons. Luna Lovegood never did any harm to anybody. She is strange, a bit mental, but basically a really nice person.”

“Don’t worry about her, Draco. She’s a pureblood. She won’t be harmed.” His mother tried to pacify him, but he brushed her off.

“That doesn’t change the fact that she is held as our prisoner, just because she is brave enough to stand with Potter.”

His mother took his face into her two hands and looked at him directly. “Listen to me Draco. One way or the other, we are going to survive this, but I need you to banish those traitorous thoughts from your mind.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Hermione was sitting cross-legged on the floor outside of their tent working on Ida after her morning katas. The little droid didn’t malfunction, but she just needed to keep it well maintained. And it calmed her working on it. She was in an impasse with her lightsabres. Something was missing, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Someone helped us,” she overheard Ron say while he pretended to search for some berries in order to appear helpful and most especially to appease her. She mentally giggled at that. “Someone sent that doe. Someone’s on our side. One Horcrux down, mate!”

Harry had persuaded her to restore Ron’s memories the day before and bolstered by the destruction of the locket they set to debating the possible locations of the other Horcruxes, and even though they had discussed the matter so often before, she could sense that Harry felt optimistic again, certain that more breakthroughs would succeed. She pondered on the doe for a while. Who in the order had a doe as a Patronus? To her dismay, she had to concede that she had no idea. Perhaps someone from her brother’s resistance group? But that was also unlikely as she hadn’t told him about the Horcruxes. McGonagall’s Patronus was a cat, but she had no idea about the other teacher’s patronuses. Flitwick, perhaps? Sprout? Snape, being a Death Eater was rather unlikely. But it was the sword of Gryffindor. There was no doubt in it.

Hermione checked over Ida one more time and hit the activation button. The little droid shot up a few feet in the air and chirped several confused curses in droid-speak.

“Calm down!” Hermione beseeched the hovering droid. “I just checked if all your functions are working fine.” She nodded at it’s probing. “Yes, they do work fine.”

“I don’t like that thing.” She heard Ron complain to Harry. “Just as creepy as the spider you practised on earlier.” Harry chuckled.

Hermione stood up and approached them noiselessly from behind. “Except that Ida could actually save your life, Ronald.” Both her friends jumped and quickly turned towards her. Hermione mentally cheered at their surprised faces.

“You just need more practice, you two.” She told them what she hoped to sound encouraging. Harry was about to retort but kept quiet. Probably to not stress their situation. “I know that these wands feel strange, but I’d hoped that by commissioning the same specifications as your old ones, they might be handier than some randomly chosen other wands.”

“Yeah, that was good thinking, Mione.” Ron agreed eagerly, while Harry was partially amused and annoyed at his friend’s behaviour. But he wanted to whack his glove towards the back of Ron’s head.

“Agreed, but to me, it almost feels as if I cheat on the Fawkes who gave his feather willingly.” Harry tried to explain her.

“You are not cheating on Fawkes.” Hermione said. “I’m pretty sure that he knows that you appreciate his generosity and when all of this is over you can use your wand again. But until then he surely is alright with you using the wand of a … friend of his.”

“Or enemy of his.” Harry murmured.

“Well, Fawkes is a domesticated bird. It’s possible that the feather in your wand is from a wild one.” Hermione mused.

“Ah, well we, unfortunately, didn’t find any wild berries.” Ron changed the subject and uncomfortably scratched the back of his head.

“I’m not going to say ‘I told you so’ “Hermione answered jokingly and turned around towards their tent “But I did bloody tell you.”

“Blimey Hermione, language.” Ron joked back and she could hear Harry sigh.

A few hours later it was Hermione’s turn to cook. Yet they had to become more creative as their vast provisions were slowly running low. It seemed that she had miscalculated.

“I want to go and see the Lovegoods.” Hermione told them later sitting around the stove in the tent stirring the pot.

“That’s not a good idea.” Harry cut in brushing his hand through his hair. “We could put them in danger and I really don’t want to repeat the last encounter with the snatchers.”

“Understandable.” Hermione nodded. “But I’m afraid we can’t get around that. Last time you both could easily have taken the snatchers out, but you hesitated. Next time you just have to remember that.”

“Hey, we weren’t the only ones who hesitated, Mione. You did as well. So, don’t blame us.” Harry raised his index finger stabbing it towards her.

She scowled. _Damn_ , Harry was too perceptive sometimes. “Well, I won’t make the same mistake twice. And neither should you. Both of you.”

“Let’s put it to a vote, shall we,” Ron suggested eagerly raising his hand bringing the discussion back to the Lovegoods. Hermione grinned and put hers up as well, raising her eyebrow challengingly. “Democracy in action. Sorry, Harry.” The ginger stated clapping Harry onto the back.

“Well, this wasn’t really a request, but a friendly formulated order.” Hermione shrugged unsuccessfully trying to hide her amusement. “But thanks anyway, Ron.”

“No, hold on!” Harry interrupted her. “It IS dangerous. Why would you risk endangering the two? They have declared themselves loyal to me. So, they are bound to be under close observation”

“You are correct, Harry.” Hermione answered plopping down on her cot. “But so, far we only have ideas where the other Horcruxes might be or who the Fisherking might have given them to.”

“Wait, you think that Lovegood knows the whereabouts? That’s mental.” Ron said.

“No, Ronald.” Hermione changed into her lecturing tone. “You said it yourself. Dumbledore left you the illuminator, which brought you back to us, he left me this old version, of beetle the bard and Harry his snitch. What if his gifts are more than just random things, but actually are the key to all of this?”

“How should a children’s book help us with Horcruxes?” Ron lamented.

“Because it isn’t exactly a children’s book,” Hermione told him. “It’s written on old, weathered parchment, the binding was changed several times already and most importantly, the text is written in ancient runes and Middle English. Not the standardized, modernized runes we are using since the eighteenth century. These are the elder rune scripts, which makes this a script that is probably closest to the original versions. This book is technically invaluable.”

“Ok,” Harry asked. “What does this have to do with the Lovegoods?”

“This sign,” Hermione told them opening the scandalous biography of Dumbledore, the tales of Beedle the Bard and showed them. “This sign keeps popping up and it isn’t a rune. It was in Godric’s Hollow, it is edged and drawn in the pages of Beedle the Bard and Dumbledore used it as his signature in a letter.”

“Wait, wasn’t that the sign Krumm was so agitated about?” Ron enquired seeing it on one of the pages.

“Yes.” Hermione was surprised that Ron remembered that. “He believed it to be Grindelwald’s sign, but the dark wizard might just have appropriated the sign for his own pursuits. I mean it wouldn’t be the first time that a maniac appropriated much older signs with different denotations. Viktor just doesn’t seem to know that. Considering that Grindelwald was expelled from Durmstrang, they might not teach the historical background of it. From what I could gather at the wedding, the Lovegoods might have some knowledge about the sign.

“Yeah, but what if their ‘knowledge’ is actually just something that they are fantasizing about?” Ron reminded her.

“I guess we have to take that risk.” Hermione shrugged knowing full well that she was clutching at straws.

“We could also contact your brother,” Harry suggested. “I mean somebody might know something about it.”

“No, that’s too risky. Galen works with all kinds of people. It is possible that he has some untrustworthy spies in his little organization who could report back to the Death Eaters and alert the Fisherking. Look, I can feel that this is important. A sign that links Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Godric’s Hollow? Harry, I’m sure we ought to know about this!” she insisted. The Force was urging her to follow this lead.

Harry sighed rubbing his front. “Fine,” said Harry, half amused, half irritated. “Only, once we’ve seen Lovegood, let’s try and look for some more Horcruxes, shall we?”

“Well, that is the plan, but it is possible that we might find out something that actually helps us in their pursuit.” Hermione nodded. “Luna does live close to the Burrow, doesn’t she?”

Ron nodded stepping closer to Hermione beaming at her. “Yeah, dunno exactly where, but Mum and Dad always point toward the hills whenever they mention them. Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

She took a step back contemplating. The force urged her to take this step of meeting the Lovegoods, but she could also feel darkness and danger at the edges of her consciousness. Ready to strike. So, they had to be prepared for everything. There was danger lurking in that direction.

“Alright.” Hermione squared her shoulders. “then we need to prepare. Harry is right, that this could be dangerous for us and them. So, we should be prepared for everything, for all eventualities. Our best possibility is the darkness of the night so that we could arrive there shortly before dawn.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like your best idea, Hermione.” Harry grit his teeth. “I mean Mr Lovegood will probably blast us into oblivion when they are woken up so early and he could confuse us with Deatheaters coming for him at that time.”

She nodded. “I see where you are coming from, but I’ve given this some thought. It’s a new moon. That means that there won’t be any light from above, we can’t use our wands to light our way, but I know a spell that can give us night vision. Additionally, to that, I will cast notice me not spell onto us. So, today is the perfect opportunity to visit them. You will hike hidden under your invisibility cloak and Ron and I will use Polyjuice potion during our journey. Once we reach their house you will reveal yourself and then we will ask the questions and make sure to dash afterwards. I want you to have your wands ready in case we are attacked. No, hesitation this time.”

“Yeah, that is a good plan.” Ron agreed grinning at Harry who rolled his eyes fighting back a grin. Hermione could swear that she heard him murmur “whipped” under his breath.

“No, it really isn’t but it’s the best I could come up with at such short notice.” She smiled at him warmth blossoming in her heart. She shook her head. No time for emotions right now. Bo-Katan would have whacked her on the back of her head for this. Hard and let her complete another obstacle course for good measure.

She stepped towards the table and summoned her bag. “I suggest we eat first, I made sure that it’s not something that causes bad breath and prepare. We leave shortly after midnight.”

They had packed everything inside the tent, but Hermione hesitated. Should she put on her armour? Technically the idea was that they had to appear inconspicuous. But… She hesitated. The darkness simmering just at the edges of her awareness. There was a confrontation to come. Her fingers itched to get her armour out of her bag, but what if she frightened the Lovegoods with her appearance?

" _There are two reasons why we have to wear armour. One is so that we don't get killed too easily. The other is so that we all look Mandalorian, however different we may be from our brothers and sisters. Some clans even believe that they shouldn’t show your face until you’ve earned your signet._ " The memory wafted through her mind as her grandmother had told her this just before she had received her armour that the leader of her clan had chosen for her with the help of her cousin Korkie. The armor that she had already reforged twice so that it fit her like a second skin and she still hadn’t had her own signet but hoped that she might earn it on this quest.

She shook her head murmuring: "Verd ori'shya beskar'gam. (=A warrior is more than his armour)" She pulled out her vambraces, shrugged out of her jacket and put them on where they immediately adjusted to her size. With a few taps, the computer activated and displayed that everything was ready. She might not be able to wear her full armour, her lightsabres were still not functioning, but she wouldn’t go unprotected into battle. And one of her blasters was hooked to her side. The fact that Death Eaters had no, or very limited knowledge of technology could play into her hands. A few seconds later a bomb and two small grenades came flying out of her bag, which she quickly pocketed. She couldn’t pocket more otherwise she might run out of them too soon. Closing her jacket, she put on her harness and closed the clip under her breast. This time ID-9 would stay on her back, just in case. It would look like a small backpack until she activated it. Ida chirped somewhere above her, and her upper body was pushed forward as it settled into it. Ron and Harry were watching her verily.

“How many of these things are in there?” Harry asked verily.

“Enough for the moment”, she snapped defensively knowing that her stack of grenades was slowly nearing its end. She should have tried to get her hands on more ammunition, but that would have been too suspicious and obvious. Mandalorians always knew how much ammunition they had. The rebel cells where less cautious, which had played into her favour.

They had walked for a few hours, just like Hermione had planned. Nature was eerily calm, and barely any snow was lying on the ground, yet some taste of spring was already palatable in the air. The only sound they heard for hours was the crunching of their footsteps on the cold, hard frozen ground and their occasional conversation. At the crack of dawn, a cluster of low hills appeared to be uninhabited apart from one small cottage, which seemed deserted. It seemed that they were way too early.

“Do you think it’s theirs, and they’ve gone away for Christmas?” said Hermione whispered to her two friends. Peering through the window at a neat little kitchen with geraniums on the windowsill. Nope, this house didn’t particularly seem to have much in common with the Lovegoods. It was way too traditional.

Ron snorted. “Listen, I’ve got a feeling you’d be able to tell who lived there if you looked through the Lovegoods’ window. Let’s try the next lot of hills.”

One and a half hours later they arrived at the next set of hills and Ron shouted as the cold wind whipped their hair and clothes. “Aha!” He was pointing upward, toward the top of the hill where a most strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky. “That’s got to be Luna’s house, who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!”

Harry, panting and clutching stitches at the sides ground out. “Way to wake up the entire neighbourhood, Ron.”

“What?” He queried biting his lower lip sheepishly.

“He means that you are too loud, Ron.” She clarified, opening the gate which creaked and made her wince. Great. So much for stealth.

“Ok, he got it I guess.” Harry defended him following her through meandering pathway towards the house, passed two aged crab apple trees, bent with the wind, stripped of leaves but still heavy with frozen berry-sized red fruits and bushy crowns of white-beaded mistletoe, stood sentinel on either side of the front door. They were being watched. Her sense prickled. _There_! A little owl with a slightly flattened, hawk-like head peered down at them from one of the branches. Hermione didn’t like that bird particularly. It followed their every move. She stopped in her tracks and searched for the exact spot of that bird. It was analysing them. Yet not in an animalistic way. Very analytical. She grabbed her wand and hurled a petrificus totalus at the unsuspecting bird, which unceremoniously fell from the tree into the pile of frozen leaves with a slight swish.

“What the hell did you that for?” Harry hissed behind her. “The owl can’t hurt anybody.”

“You did mention earlier that the Lovegoods might be under surveillance by the Ministry.” She hissed back. “That owl doesn’t feel like a regular owl. Considering it is the only living thing in this garden, it could be an Animagus.”

“So, you are not taking any chances, right? ” Ron whispered from behind them and Hermione nodded. “Poor birdy.” Ron mumbled. “It’s not a bird.” She hissed back.

“You’d better take off the Invisibility Cloak, Harry,” said Hermione when they stepped towards the door. “It’s you Mr Lovegood wants to help, not us and he probably won’t recognize us under our disguise.”

He did as she suggested, handing her the Cloak to stow in the beaded bag. She then rapped three times on the thick black door and braced herself when she detected that a very nervous presence was already pacing behind the door. It seemed that he had already been up.

Barely ten seconds passed, then the door was flung open and there stood Xenophilius Lovegood, barefoot and wearing what appeared to be a stained nightshirt. His long white candyfloss hair was dirty and unkempt.

“What? What is it? Who are you? What do you want?” he cried in a high-pitched, querulous voice, looking first at Hermione, then at Ron, and finally at Harry, upon which his mouth fell open in a perfect, comical O.

“Hello, Mr. Lovegood,” said Harry, holding out his hand. “I’m Harry, Harry Potter.”

Xenophilius did not take Harry’s hand, although the eye that was not pointing inward at his nose slid straight to the scar on Harry’s forehead.

“I know, I don’t have my black hair at the moment. Would it be okay if we came in?” asked Harry calmly. “There’s something we’d like to ask you.”

“I . . . I’m not sure that’s advisable,” whispered Xenophilius. He swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. “Rather a shock . . . My word . . . I . . . I’m afraid I don’t really think I ought to —”

“It won’t take long,” said Harry, slightly disappointed by this less-than-warm welcome.

“We wouldn’t be here if we could have avoided it, but your valuable insight into certain matters are the only thing that might help us. Please Mr. Lovegood. You are our only hope.” His eyes darted to her. He clearly was fighting with himself. He felt torn. He missed something. Or someone? It seemed as if his fear was winning and he could have slammed his door shut at every second. His hands were trembling.

“M…M…Me?” he asked with unsure voice and Hermione nodded empathically.

“The ministry won’t come for some time. We took out their little spy in the tree a few minutes ago. When we leave, we will take his memories and revive him.” She beseeched him and his eyes bulged, his eyes darted towards the tree and back at them. Harry shook his head at her clearly unhappy with that admission.

“I — oh, all right then. Come in, quickly. Quickly!” he stuttered hesitantly. They were barely over the threshold when Xenophilius slammed the door shut behind them and ushered them through the rather peculiar, yet very Lovegoodish kitchen towards a wrought-iron spiral staircase led to the upper levels. “You’d better come up,” said Xenophilius, still looking extremely uncomfortable as he led the way. He was shaking nervously. Hermione could swear that she saw pearls of cold sweat running down his front.

The room above seemed to be a combination was an utter mess, that even surpassed the one in the kitchen. The loud clattering and banging came from a wooden printing machine that was busily working its magic. Harry was taking everything in, his face full of childlike wonder.

Hermione, however stopped in her tracks, when her gaze fell upon an enormous, grey spiral horn, not unlike that of a unicorn, which had been mounted on the wall, protruding several feet into the room. Her breath hitched and she took a deep breath. Crying out in shock could stop their lucky streak and cause Xenophilius to shut down. She had to stay calm.

“Mr Lovegood? Why do you have an erumpent Horn in your house? They are It’s a Class B Tradeable Material and it’s an extraordinarily dangerous thing to have in a house!” she enquired portraying calmness when she was mentally preparing for the worst. That thing could destroy the entire building within seconds.

“Nonsense, it’s the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” said Xenophilius very clearly, a mulish look upon his face, “which is a shy and highly magical creature, and its horn —”

“With all due respect, Mr Lovegood, I recognize the grooved markings around the base, that’s an Erumpent horn and it’s incredibly dangerous — I don’t know where you got it…” she interrupted him but he returned the favour, clearly being displeased by her.

“I bought it,” said Xenophilius dogmatically, “two weeks ago, from a delightful young wizard who knew of my interest in the exquisite Snorkack. A Christmas surprise for my Luna.”

Hermione nodded and bit her tongue. Her retort wouldn’t be helpful. _Well, he is either completely naïve or somebody wants to take him out subtly._

Why exactly have you come here, Mr Potter?”

“We need some help,” said Harry quickly.

“Ah,” said Xenophilius. “Help. Hmm.”

His good eye moved again to Harry’s scar. He seemed simultaneously terrified and mesmerized.

“Yes. The thing is . . . helping Harry Potter . . . rather dangerous . . .” he wrung his hands.

“Aren’t you the one who keeps telling everyone it’s their first duty to help Harry?” said Ron with rising voice “In that magazine of yours?”

Xenophilius glanced behind him at the concealed printing press, still banging and clattering beneath the tablecloth.

“Er — yes, I have expressed that view. However —”

“That’s for everyone else to do, not you personally?” Ron accused him.

Xenophilius flinched and did not answer. He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between the three of them. He was undergoing some painful internal struggle.

Before her ginger friend could say anything else Hermione locked eyes with him. She wanted to side with Ron, putting the publisher in his place, but his anguish was almost unbearable.

“Look, Mr Lovegood. I understand that you are worried about what could happen if the Deatheaters find out that I’ve been here. I really understand, but Luna could vouch for us. Perhaps you could ask her?”

Xenophilius shook his head, his lips quivering. That’s when it hit Hermione. She had been so preoccupied with the Erumpent Horn that she hadn’t paid attention to her immediate surroundings inside the house. A dangerous oversight. She berated herself.

Xenophilius gulped. He seemed to be steeling himself. Finally, he said in a shaky voice difficult to hear over the noise of the printing press, “Luna is down at the stream, fishing for Freshwater Plimpies. She . . . she will like to see you. I’ll go and call her and then — yes, very well. I shall try to help you.”

Hermione stopped him from stepping down the stairs. “There was a reason why you changed your affiliation. Am I right?”

He stopped in his tracks and turned towards her. He was barely holding it together.

“Yes.” He ground out his shoulders tensing, holding back tears.

“No!” Harry shouted out with wide eyes.

“Yes, they took her. They took my Luna.” He continued to shake but lost the fight against his tears. “They took my Luna.”

He plumbed into one of the chairs with a loud thud, tears streaming down his face. “They took her and I haven’t heard from her for months?” he whimpered and Hermione slammed her mental defences into place. She couldn’t succumb to all the feelings around her. She needed to keep calm. She carefully guided her rising ire into the Force. She couldn’t hold it. Luna, innocent Luna. She didn’t want to imagine what the scumbags could do to her. No, she had to stay calm. Closing her eyes, she took another deep breath. Ron and Harry were just as shocked as her, but she should have anticipated that this could happen. “They…they were angry about the things I printed. So…. So, they took her.” He whimpered, tears streaming down his puffy face. “She’s all I have.”

“Mr. Lovegood, we are so sorry,” Harry told him kneeling next to the broken man. He put his hand on Mr. Lovegood’s arm. “We didn’t know about that. We promise that we will do everything we can to get her back.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep Harry.” Hermine admonished him drily and saw her friends jaws drop and his anger flare-up.

“Hermione, if Luna was taken then we need to find her before they could do anything to her.” Ron argued and Mr. Lovegood nodded or rather wobbled his head in agreement.

“I agree with you both, that we need to find and free her,” Hermione said cooly. “But giving promises that we can’t keep won’t help anybody. Neither Luna, nor Mr. Lovegood. And we do not have the time to run this errand if we want to stop You-know-who for good.”

Mr. Lovegood shook as another wave of emotions hit him. Hermione fought to block it out from her senses.

“Hermione. You are being insensitive again. We have to find her.” Harry beseeched her. “This is Luna we are talking about. We can’t leave her behind.” He was terrified and worried for her.

“I never said that we’d leave her behind, but it won’t be our team searching for her.” She told them. “Mr. Lovegood. I know just the person to contact who has the means to find Luna, but first we need your help.”

He nodded diminutively a few times. “Yes. Of course, I’ll help if you can get me my Luna back. But before I help you, I need you to fulfil your bargain first. And get in contact with that person.” He gulped. “As you said earlier that you couldn’t do this yourself, I need an assurance that you keep your promise.”

 _You are cleverer, than you look old man._ She had to begrudged admit or he was stalling for time.

“Fair enough.” She inclined her head and pulled her jacket back revealing her left vambrace and activated her comm.

“Su'cuy Ori'vod. (Hailing big brother.)” Hermione spoke into it.

“Elek, Hermione.” Her brother answered swiftly and the three others in the room jumped. “Copaani gaan, ner vod? (=Need a hand, Sister?)

“’lek.(=yes)” She told him, her gaze drawn to Lovegood’s confused face. “Luna Lovegood was taken by the Death Eaters.”

“Mhi kar'tayli (= we know)” he responded. “They couldn’t have taken her to the ministry, so we suspect that they have her in their aloriya (=headquarters).”

“Any chance of getting her out?” Hermione asked knowing the answer. If Galen knew and they hadn’t tried, then it was impossible, or she just wasn’t a priority. But she wouldn’t tell the worried man slumped in his chair. As Galen had slipped back to Mando’a he probably suspected that she was at the Lovegoods and the editor might listen in.

“We’re working on that. Its defences are tight and Ms. Lovegood isn’t the only person we want to spring out from there.” He sounded exhausted.

“What are the chances of having been harmed?” she enquired with a steady voice, steadier than she felt anyways.

“It’s hard to say. As she is a pureblood coming from two old pureblood lines, she is considered as valuable breeding stock.” Galen stopped shortly. Mr Lovegood wailed at hearing that. Harry and Ron also expressed their shock and Hermione swore to rip the Death Eaters to pieces who dared to lay a hand on Luna in that way. “Ori'haat. (=It's the truth, I swear—no bull.). It’s a new policy the Ministry is working on for a time …after Harry Potter’s demise.” He stopped again. “So, any potential young bride for the new policy can’t visibly be harmed.”

“ _Vor'e, ner vod.(=thanks, brother).”_ She ground out fighting her rising fury. “Should you be able to free Luna, could you please get her and her father into a safe house?”

“Hermione, you know we can’t make promises. If we somehow manage to spring her out from there, then she and her father are perfectly welcome to hide in one of our safe houses.” He told them and Hermione could swear that he sounded a bit annoyed. Since when was his temper getting the better of him? Things really had to be extremely bad on his front or she caught him at a bad time.

“Vor entye (=Thank you!)” Hermione ended the call abruptly and addressed Mr Lovegood, who seemed to have found some strength from that conversation. “Now, as you’ve probably heard, there is a team trying to free her, would you please be so kind and help us now?”

Mr. Lovegood nodded hesitantly and opened his mouth but no words came out…

Suddenly, a sharp loud knock from downstairs made the entire group jump. Someone was knocking on the door! The Force around her darkened. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, eager to read your comments.


End file.
